








































Class 

Book ^ 

Goiptht N” 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



























While Hopes 
Were Kindling 


BY 

HYRAM S. LAW 


i 's XxK'njLA 



n 





Nineteen Hundred and one 


i 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAR. 29 1901 

Copyright entry 

Xl.Xfot 

CLASS xXo. N». 

COPY B. 



Copyrighted, 1901, by 

Mary Catherine Frances Walsh, 

CURTIS, STEUBEN COUNTY, N. Y. 


All rights reserved. 



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contents 

PACE 

Chapter 

I. 

Great Drifts, 

I 

Chapter 

11. 

His First Step Forward, 

9 

Chapter 

III. 

That Evening, 

. i6 

Chapter 

IV. 

All for Brotherhood, . 

20 

Chapter 

V. 

Shifting Life’s Pictures, . 

22 

Chapter 

VI. 

Burdened by Wealth, 

68 

Chapter 

VII. 

Questionable Decisions, . 

. 72 

Chapter VIII. 

Hearts Adrift, 

II5 



PREFACE 


Illustrations from life are presented to woman for 
two reasons : first, to encourage woman to take higher 
flights of the mind ; second, to inspire woman to pro- 
ject and establish homes for the weak and homeless, and 
spread sentiments of true brotherhood. 

Having fully realized the importance of telling for- 
getful women all about the unpleasant incidents which 
occur in our times, and in order to forewarn of dangers 
awaiting many, I offer this little volume to the public. 
The proceeds I shall freely use for the projecting and 
establishing of a Retreat for Women, which shall be a 
“Thought Exchange,” a Retreat where the thought of 
the day and the thought of the future shall be freely 
discussed, and lectures from the highest thinkers of our 
times shall be included in the stage attractions, in all the 
soul food to be rendered therefrom. 

THE AUTHOR. 


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CHAPTER I. 


Great Drifts. 



REAT oaks and towering 
pines were heavily bur- 
dened by several inches 
of starry snow-flakes as 
we entered the snow- 
clad fields to view the 
beautifully-terraced eminence and spreading mansion 
owned and occupied by a worthy follower of the plow 
— a practical farmer, pioneer, churchman, patriotic states- 
man and staunch friend to the distressed. This majestic 
home is the visible result of thrift and energy, blended 
with the well-developed taste of its worthy owner, who 
was at that instant industriously plying, with hammer 
and chisel, to lift the cover from a box of game, which 
he had shipped home during his recent hunting skirm- 
ish in the Michigan forest. 

This lofty dwelling, occupied by humble, unpreten- 
tious people, is quietly nestled on the breast of Rose 
Hill, which vies with the beauties of the valley, as she 
seems to extend her snow-clad arms in graceful benedic- 
tion o’er the winding ways of the beautiful Chemung and 
its tributary, the Cohocton. 

Colonel Samuel Hasgrove lifted the cover from the 
box and gazed with pride at the varied species of dead 
game, saying, as he did so, “ I wonder whither drifteth 
your spirit. It would be a hopeless outlook for man if 



While Hopes Were Kindling, 


the belief were common that at the hour of death his 
consciousness ceased. The next world,” said he, as he 
continued talking to himself, “ what a wonderful thought! 
It encourages art, the beautifying of the home, the thirst 
for heart-culture, and also visual measurement of great 
altitudes.” 

Shouts of merry laughter attracted his attention, and 
the wood-house door, near which he stood, immediately 
flew open. His only child, Margaret, and a group of happy 
friends entered, shouting, stamping and brushing snow 
off one another’s clothes. They had had an enjoyable 
time snowballing, scrubbing faces and burying one another 
in drifts of the crystal flakes, and were now overwhelmed 
by snow blindness from the sudden change of light. 

Through another door, from the kitchen side of the 
wood-house. Mother Hasgrove entered. “ Come, come, 
I say,” said she. “ This is no place for you youngsters 
in snow-wet clothes. Come, I say; you’ll catch the 

grip" 

“ Go, go,” added her husband, good humoredly, 
'‘or the grip will catch you, young men and young 
women.” After prolonged laughter the merry party, 
one and all, responded to words of cordial greeting, and 
promised to honor their host and hostess by their pres- 
ence at the homestead until after Thanksgiving. 

When Colonel Hasgrove was alone, he said to 
himself: 

“Tomorrow is a great day. Tomorrow the im- 
moral man is to be pure, the drunken man will be sober; 
tomorrow true brotherhood will prevail; tomorrow the 
unholy grasp of fraud will set all hearts free; tomorrow 
is the strength of the weak. Colonel,” said he, as if 
speaking to another self, “have you not waited until to- 
morrow. Yes, I have been waiting to take a forward step 


Great Drifts. 


j 


in behalf of true brotherhood for the last forty years, and 
I am waiting still for that long-lost day, tomorrow. But 
I shall cease to speculate on tomorrow. I shall begin 
today — yes, this minute,” he said, in vehement tones. “ I 
will now go and distribute the game in this box among 
my thirty hired men. I will tell them to come and enjoy 
festivities with us from half-past seven till ten o’clock at 
my house tomorrow evening. Margaret’s friends must 
contribute to the entertainment. My roomy dwelling may 
then be filled. It will do all hearts good when light sheds 
forth from every window; and besides this, Tom James is 
an enthusiastic member of the Reform Club, Bertram 
Williams a medical student and William Benson a law 
student; all three are enterprising, talkative young men. 
They can give short talks on the science of life, which 
may go far toward giving a cheerful feature to the 
gloomy prospect before the poor men and their families. 
It will promote heart-culture and enable me to take my 
first forward step.” 

Colonel Hasgrove continued to look after men and 
affairs until the long-looked for tomorrow was ushered 
in the very next day — the great national holiday, which 
appeared on his calendar once a year. 

“This is Thanksgiving,” soliloquized the colonel, 
“with her smiles and sunlit landscape enveloped in daz- 
zling, frosty splendor; this is the day when I am to break 
away from my wife’s cold formalities and make a stroke 
in behalf of brotherhood.” 

Colonel Hasgrove then wondered how his good 
wife, Jane, would be able to take his “forward step,” 
more especially when his employees would come in for 
a share of his Thanksgiving festivities. 

“ I cannot expect her to look favorably upon my 
project,” thought he. “ She who thinks that if she be- 


4 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 

stows her patronage on any entertainment in our town 
hall, she has rendered a service to civilization. How 
foreign to her are the facts of her husband’s parent- 
age. My almost superhuman efforts,” he continued, 
“have concealed from her many things. Oh, God! 
grant she may never know all. She of narrow reason- 
ing powers must never know.” 

Colonel Samuel Hasgrove, wending his way through 
corridors in his magnificent barns, considered his true, 
ideal character and now he could not find this in his 
good wife, Jane. Although Jane was a daughter of the 
Revolution, she was prayerfully hard. He remem- 
bers many things. His mind drifted to scenes w’hich 
are all his own. Only he and his noble brother at 
Steven’s Center know the whole. His father was but an 
English exile, though of noble bearing and a once good 
family. He married an Indian girl in Connecticut, who 
seemed gifted with instinct and thought sublime, who 
loved her English chief, the paleface, and who revealed 
to him many valuable Indian treasures, and who made 
him wealthy. He remembered his dusky mother’s 
prayers and her tears as she fondly held her two sons in 
her arms and taught them the prayers she had learned 
from their father. He remembered how she loved and 
adored the memory of her white spouse. Deeper and 
deeper sank his thoughts. His memories questioned 
an educated English gentleman’s endurance. He ques- 
tioned the mental drifts and asked: “Are all men sane at 
all times?” Then he followed his father on his voyages 
of discovery, when he went as negotiator for food, ex- 
changing skins for corn and meat, and ofttimes whisky. 
Boyhood pictures seemed to illumine, for his little eyes 
had been open. The pine-stump roots had burned on 
his New England hearth. The splinter in the socket in 


Great Drifts, 


5 


the stone wall had lighted his way to bed many and 
many a time. He lingered over the feasting and the 
hunting, and the wild songs and wilder dances, the sud- 
den rage, the sudden laughter, and more sudden on- 
slaught of painted warriors and their dastardly, bloody 
deed, which, according to his dear mother’s belief, 
had made her a widow and the boys orphans. She 
left her treasures to Robert, the eldest son, and sob- 
bed her life into the sleep from which there is no 
awakening, so many years ago that Colonel Hasgrove 
begins to question whether his years are to be spared 
until his name will go down in history as the oldest 
man of the age. Yet his heart is still young, his step 
firm, his vision clear, and his soul as susceptible to im- 
pressions as it was sixty or seventy years ago. He lived 
down the “ pluck-me-store system ” before he became a 
giant-like land-owner. He passed through the varied 
forms of creeds, but firmly adhered to common sense, 
and he has drawn a conclusion that, always before 
taking up the question of a remedy, it is well to make 
sure the disorder to be treated has a real existence; 
and if such a disorder does exist, what series of causes 
invited the atoms together and gave it its lively and 
multiplying activity. He believes when man learns 
the real cause, the real nature of the thing which causes 
him the discomfort, he is better able to apply the 
remedy, and the suitability of the remedy should demand 
thoughtful suggestions. 

The laborer is dear to his heart. But Jane, his 
wife, looks upon the laborer as a good for nothing 
machine, a sort of a brute, whom she regards fit for use 
only. As a matter of fact, she never cared for “ general 
improvements ” as long as her own wants were supplied. 
A blessing which fell upon her to a pronounced degree. 


6 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


for she was never known to want, and always had her 
way. She had no cordial sympathy nor welcome for 
friends, except in so far as it would tend to please her 
only daughter, Margaret ; and of late years it was said 
that she had heeded words of sound counsel from Mar- 
garet, her approved and trusted leader, and that occa- 
sionally she feared danger would come of further submis- 
sion to her whose clear words were well considered in 
favor of self, and these speedily derived emphasis from 
her readings and inherited disposition to go roving. 

I see no reasonable grounds for your funeral face, 
Samuel,” said his good wife, as she led the way to the 
table. 


“And of that dinner what need to tell. 

Of joys that are past expressing, 

Of the sad destruction which there befell 
The turkey and sauce with dressing?” 

The delighted group left the table, satisfied that 
they were justified in calling it an “old-time Thanks- 
giving dinner,” although the old custom had not been 
applied to the fowl — the turkey was not brandy-fed 
before being bled. 

Mother Hasgrove was now suffering mental tortures, 
for she had had thirteen at her table. She wondered at 
her lack of forethought in not making either the cook or 
upstairs maid come to the table to break the spell. Her 
heart and soul were filled with unfortunate forebodings. 
She seated herself near the wood heating stove, which had 
been in her family since the days of the Revolution. 
She could not take heart to enter the parlor to share 
further amusement. After a few moments, Tom James 
came to her. He drew up a chair, seated himself and 
began to chat on “ the new movements.” This seemed 


Great Drifts. 


7 


to make her life more and more unbearable. “ If 
he’d only known enough,” said she to herself, to stay 
in the other room ” — the parlor, from which song and 
laughter went wildly ringing through the house. Tom 
chatted gaily. He was aware of the fact that a great 
many of Colonel Hasgrove’s employees were drinking 
men, he believed this was the old lady’s trouble, and 
comparisons were flitting to and fro in his mind of 
the great difference to be found between master, mistress 
and man on this great national holiday. He was trying 
also to perfect a plan by which this evil could be repelled. 
After a brief pause. Mother Hasgrove said : 

There will be a dance at the landing tonight.” 

“ Yes,” added Tom, and presumably John the Rags 
as fiddler.” 

” I cannot see for the life of me,” she added, ” why 
people join hands all around and go swinging around 
like mad in a public place. They dance against all 
moral law, all discipline of church and common sense.” 

” It will be brains that tell under new rules,” said 
Tom, “and many who are supposed to be among the 
*not very level-headed’ may be the very ones who are to 
be regarded the light of our age. Drones and dreamers 
and superficial thinkers will soon have to pitch their 
tents among the Rockies.” 

“ Seems to me,” replied Mother Hasgrove, “ that 
the youngsters of nowadays are all unthinking. They 
expect old people to pace with them, whether they know 
how to run or not.” 

“Old folks must keep up,” said Tom. “The yawn- 
ing grave cares not whether youth or age enters first. 
Old folks must join the movement and encourage and 
lead the young. They must see with perfect vision the 
state of affairs at their own threshold before starting out 


8 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


to religiously lead others, converting the heathen or 
attending to other folks’ affairs.” 

“Oh, Tom,” cried Margaret from the other room, 
“ do come in here and tell us all how to begin. Tell us 
what we must do ; we are so removed from the enlight- 
ened members of society, we know nothing, except what 
we read from the papers. Tell us something, then come 
join us in a game of whist.” 

“ That’s an idea,” said Tom, as he entered the par- 
lor, where tables were immediately brought forward, and 
Bertram Williams, William Dennis, a young student at 
law, and Edward Benson were quick to their feet to get 
in position for the game. 

Colonel Hasgrove caused a lull by saying : “ Boys, 
first a game of forty-five,” adding, “ this is an old-time 
game, of which I was very fond. I have not played it in 
years.” 

The three young men and their host sat around a 
table, while Margaret and the girls and Tom chatted 
merrily on the movements of the day. 


CHAPTER 11. 


His First Step Forward. 

Mr. Hasgrove — “What shall we play for?” 

Bertram — “Forward steps.” 

William — “ Money.” 

Edward — “Time is money” 

Mr. Hasgrove — “Then we’ll play time; he who 
loses shall spend three weeks as the crowd sees fit.” 

Bertram — “That’s not right.” 

William — “ But I say it is ! ” 

Edward — “So do I.” 

Mother Hasgrove was horrified; she was speech- 
less — she questioned, what will Rev. Mr. Curbstone think? 

Colonel Hasgrove chuckled, and entered the game 
without further words; then Tom and the girls returned 
to the music room. 

“Oh, Tom,” cried Miss Conklin, “do tell us something 
contained in the teachings of the forward movement.” 

“Well” said Tom, “Jesus said if thine eye be single, 
thy whole body shall be full of light. As I understand 
his meaning, we must seek the truth with a single 
motive, not a double one; and if we see with a single 
motive we must enter into ourselves and teach our own 
hearts ; that in many ways we are guilty of the sins com- 
mitted by our neighbors, round and about us. We 
should enter a personal conscious salvation that is com- 
plete and up-to-date. This includes self-sacrifice, self- 
denial and true charity. It does away with outward 
show, then we could no longer pray for appearances ; 
instead, we would be found praying for a heart and a 


lo While Hopes Were Kmdling. 

soul culture that would not close the door on the weary 
traveler, nor thereby create in his soul a commotion 
against ourselves.” 

Mother Hasgrove shrank from this shaft sent to her 
so unceremoniously by Tom. It was only yesterday she 
gave the cook orders to “ never open the gate for John 
the Rags,” a poor, unfortunate, harmless wayfarer who 
lost his judgment over a love affair some twenty years 
ago, and who carries a coffee sack upon his shoulder 
filled with questionable bits of rags, papers and postage 
stamps, which, it is said, he believes very valuable. He 
sleeps in barns during summer, and near the boilers 
in the grist or sawmills in cold weather; ofttimes he 
wanders to a tannery some twelve miles up the valley 
and there he sleeps on the piles of ground tan -bark in 
the engine room, and shares the tobacco and mid-night 
meal of the workingmen, the rollers and watchmen ; 
besides refusing John the Rags admittance, she absolute- 
ly refused to give a slice of bread to a tramp, who raised 
his face, a moment afterwards, to heaven pleading for her 
conversion, and shouting to the top of his voice, “Oh 
Lord, this woman’s heart-strings are tangled in darkness, 
grant her thine light.” 

“Words fail to make us Christians,” Tom continued, 
after a brief pause, “and deeds do not altogether suffice; 
few realize why, until we reach the age of seven years, we 
are submerged by original darkness. Our understanding 
is unprotected, our bodies are unable to nourish our 
soul powers; often men have cares which hinder, and 
women have cares that annoy, and the soul is often for- 
gotten until the heart-strings are tangled and submerged 
and the hour cometh.” 

“Come, come, one and all,” shouted Colonel Has- 
grove, striking the table with such force as to bring 


His First Step Forward, 


1 1 

all to their feet. The game of forty-five was finished, and 
Bertram Williams must pay the wager. 

“What shall it be?” Bertram cried, adding, “I am 
the unfortunate and at the mercy of my party.” 

“And a merciless party,” added Tom, discourag- 
ingly ; “make him join the forward movement.” 

“ All right, it’s a go,” said Edward. 

“ Suppose,” said the young law student, “ that each 
person write on a slip of paper a recommendation, stating 
what he must do ? And we place the written slips in a 
hat among an equal number of blanks, of equal size, and 
if he happens to draw a blank let him go free, but should 
he draw the unlucky slip, let him abide with what is 
written thereon. Each should write what his or her 
conscience dictates as the pen touches the paper.” 

This furnished amusement; the girls wrote out very 
giddy routes over which he must travel while “stepping 
forward they gave him diamond and other problems 
to solve. 

“At last,” shouted Colonel Hasgrove; “come get 
your eyes muffled, Bertram ; we have your fate signed 
and sealed.” His eyes were muffled, he placed his hand 
in the hat and drew forth a slip. 

“Bertram Williams shall spend three weeks ‘step- 
ping forward’ in behalf of our movement. He shall 
remove his mustache, which is black, wear a blonde 
frontispiece, waterfall and such paraphernalia as it will 
require to dress his head in womanly fashion; he shall 
wear skirts, gaiters and rubbers belonging to woman ; in 
fine, he shall spend three weeks, from place to place, in the 
city of W. S., hunting all the problems of the day, which 
now seem to suppress and depress woman; he shall teach 
woman how to cook; he shall preach in public and in 
private that woman, having forgotten her place, has in- 


12 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 


vited drunkenness and crime; that hastily cooked victuals 
invite dyspepsia and other ailments, which for years have 
invited men three times a day to crave a stimulant, and 
in order to satisfy this desire they have caused other 
men to open saloons, and in this way spread what in 
turn led many a man to the noose of the hangman’s 
rope, and, at a later date, to the electric chair ; he shall 
teach that high wages does not answer the question, 
‘Are your employees well fed ?’ ” 

“ Capital, capital,” was the unanimous shout, as 
Margaret and a half dozen girl friends rushed to the 
storeroom, where Mother Hasgrove’s hair trunks, her 
mother’s and grandmother’s chests were over-hauled; 
and very soon each returned to the parlor with arms 
filled with all sorts of costumes of the various periods — 
wigs, frontispieces, bustles and busts were all there, even 
to the feather puffs for sleeves, and the strips of whittled 
hickory for stays. 

“ It looks as if fate set a trap for me,” said Bertram, 
who with the rest was convulsed with laughter. Mother 
Hasgrove had forgotten her unhappy forebodings, the 
evil thirteen, the crossbones and skulls which were so 
staring a few moments before. Bertram was surrounded 
for the next hour with more body servants than would 
befit a king. At last they moulded and fitted him 
into a first-class wig, a waterfall, hat and gloves. He was 
a delight to the eye, but all agreed that it would never 
do to have a bearded woman; so after much persuasion 
and considerable merriment the moustache was sacrificed. 
Then Colonel Hasgrove found time ripe to make his in- 
tentions known to his good wife, Jane, and he said, “ Ber- 
tram you have been transformed this afternoon to the new 
woman, we will call you Miss Jones. As Miss Jones we 
shall be pleased to have you give a performance on the 


His First Step Forward, 


13 


piano this evening. I am expecting my employees 
here to spend a few hours with us. I have invited them- 
selves, their wives and children, as a surprise for mother, 
and also to sow the seed of brotherly love, in so far as I 
am able.” 

Mother Hasgrove lifted her hands in amazement. 
” Why, Samuel, have you taken leave of your senses ? ” 
She shook with intense excitement, she gasped for 
words, but became silent. 

” No, mother, I am simply doing my duty; I feel it 
my duty to repel evil. My men are bidden to spend the 
evening here to be entertained; this will break up the 
dance at the landing and put a stop to some drinking.” 

“Samuel, men will drink just so long as there are 
simpletons in the clothing of men ; if there were no sim- 
pletons, there would be no evil, and spoiling our rugs, 
our carpets, and our furniture will not lift up the drunk- 
ard nor make a man of a brute; oh, what shall we do!” 
Without waiting a reply Mother Hasgrove left the room 
in haste, she was excited beyond measure, every step she 
took seemed to shake the whole house. She was a 
woman nearly six feet in height, and weighing nearly two 
hundred. Bertram was annoyed by the scene and 
hoped to help pass off the new movement as quietly as 
possible. 

Tom began to play the piano and sing without 
warning : 

“If I had a wife and she was so tight, 

I know right well what I’d do ; 

I’d get her a boat and shove her afloat. 

And let her paddle her own canoe.’’ 

This struck a good-natured chord and Mother Has- 
grove returned to the parlor and made some comment 
on “what a wife ought to do with such forward men as 


14 While Hopes Were Kindling. 

we now-a-days have;” adding, “our carpets will be 
ruined.” 

“Jane, you may go to the bank tomorrow and buy 
all the carpets you need; put your money in circulation. 
If the women about the country were like you, money 
would never leave the bank vaults.” Colonel Hasgrove 
was now happy for he had won over his wife’s temper a 
glorious victory. He immediately urged Miss Jones to 
step forward and make a speech, in order to cause his 
wife to be silent. 

“Woman sounded the key-note of our salvation,” 
said Betram in the role of new woman, “ It was she who 
brought all the ingredients together to make our bread.” 

“ I could do better than that myself if I were asked 
to speak,” said Mother Hasgrove sarcastically. 

“Christ extended an invitation to man to begin life 
over again,” said Bertram gravely; “he established the 
law of the fine arts of life.” The fine arts of life contain 
unselfishness, generosity, hope, trying to please, trying 
to give pleasure, kindness, sincerity, and a multitude of 
acts which make up the sum of our common day. 
There are people who go about the world looking for 
trouble, while there are others who shut their eyes and 
say there is no trouble at all in the world. There are 
subjects of fine inoculation to vaccinate the victim 
into perfect calm, if mixed with which makes us neces- 
sarily miserable. 

“Well,” interrupted Mother Hasgrove, “you people 
and your forward steps are enough to give a March hare 
the smallpox, if the March hare was called upon to mix 
or associate with you. 

“ Friendship is the only thing I know of that mixes 
very well with religion, and without tarnishing,” replied 
Bertram, jokingly, much to the annoyance of his hostess. 


His First Step Forward, 


15 


“ I like the straightforward steps that honorable, 
upright, well-bred people usually take,” said Mother 
Hasgrove, “ and I have no use for this or that move- 
ment that will tell us all men are equal. If all men were 
meant to be equal, there would be no law, no system, no 
preachers, no nothing. I am glad I am not so easily 
drawn into foolish movements.” 

Mother Hasgrove’s irritability was beginning to 
cast a gloom over the guests. Colonel Hasgrove, anxious 
to break the spell, invited all out to take a drive round 
the “Hill roads.” 

The very heavens seemed to kiss the earth. The 
great streak of red in the glorious sunset sky cast its 
fiery shadow over the icy crust on the spacious fields, 
which added much to the frosty scenes. The ring of 
merry laughter and jingling of bells sounded a welcome 
note to the cottagers, who were almost unaware of the 
day they were spending, until they were then aroused. 
A new life seemed to enter all hearts, and mothers made 
haste to dress their children for the anticipated happy 
event — that of spending a few hours at the “ Great 
House,” the home of their fathers’ employer, at Colonel 
Samuel Hasgrove’s majestic home, in which there was 
never a house-warming since the day it was built, over 
twenty years ago. 


CHAPTER III. 


That Evening. 

The superintendent of the mills, his wife and adopted 
daughter, Daisy Miller, were the first to enter. When 
he was seated in a niche at the end of the piano, he 
whispered to his wife : “ How the old lady’s eyes are 
snapping. The Colonel will catch it tomorrow.” 

The next man that entered whispered to his neigh- 
bor, Wonder when the Colonel tamed his panther ? ” 

Another said, The world’s coming to an end, sure 
as you’re alive.” 

It was not long before the house was filled, and 
Miss Jones was ushered down the great winding stairs 
and introduced as a gifted lady, who, though associated 
with the thinkers of our time, carried no saloon-smash- 
ing hatchet. 

Miss Jones acknowledged the compliment and, 
taking her seat at the piano, felt as one is supposed to 
feel when about to give way to stage fright.” She 
lifted her voice in the words of Edward S. Austin. The 
awful stillness caused her voice to re-echo to her con- 
sciousness as sighs and groans, as she sang in full rich 
tones : 

[Words by Edward S. Austin.] 

As we journey along up the hillside of life. 

How seldom we will comprehend 
The guideboard that teaches, in misery or strife. 

Our pocketbook is always our friend. 

You may travel this wide world from shore unto shore, 

But you’ll find e’er you’ve half reached the end, 

That man’s object is gain and to add to his store ; 

His pocketbook is always his friend. 

l6 


17 


That Evening, 

She broke down completely at the end of the second 
verse. She felt assured that Mr. Griffis, the superin- 
tendent, had detected her voice, or that her wig was 
loosening its hold on the pieces of courtplaster, which 
were drawing like mosquitos behind her ears. She 
heard a hairpin drop, and surely her bustle was a little 
to one side, or some dreadful thing must be going to 
happen to spoil the play. After a few moments she 
rallied from her dilemma, then assuming the roll of the 
shy, embarrassed country maiden, [Bertram] waited to be 
coaxed to sing some more. Then, in almost a child- 
like voice, the following words issued : 

We must gather close together. 

At the closing of each day ; 

We must beg of God for grace and favor. 

As it was our mother’s way. 

We must make our homes both bright and cheery, 

Fit to hold a welcome true ; 

We must open wide our doors of greeting 
To the many, not the few. 

We must share our Father’s bounty 
With our neighbors, day by day ; 

Yes, because we all remember, 

This was ever Father’s way. 

Song, story and games were the order of the even- 
ing, and the meek Miss Jones soon feigned ill health 
and left the room, bidding all good-night. Half an hour 
later Bertram was called upon by fifteen or twenty of 
the men who knew him to explain himself, and about 
what became of his moustache, and similar questions. 
The young women enjoyed the entertainment from the 
upper hall. Mother Hasgrove, Margaret and the regular 
guests keeping, as nearly as possible, out of sight. When 
all were about to say good-night. Colonel Hasgrove ex- 


1 8 While Hopes Were Kindlmg. 

tended an invitation to all to come again, and that next 
time Miss Jones would read a paper describing life, as it 
impressed her while shifting past her revolving mirror. 

“Yes,” said Colonel Hasgrove, “Miss Jones will 
shift a few dozen pictures of life for our benefit.” 

“Good subject, if it’s well handled,” said the super- 
intendent, adding, “they’ll all come; I know they will, 
and gladly, too. Why, all that the men need in order to 
make them perfect, is to call out their higher inclina- 
tions. They need more exercise for their higher 
thought.” 

“Yes, yes,” said the Colonel, in reply, “they need 
soul food. That is all. We must endeavor to lift them 
up.” 

Closing the door after the men. Colonel Hasgrove, 
addressing Bertram and the rest of the party, said: 
“This forfeit must be paid, Bertram. We played you 
for time, you lost, and you’re so capable of playing your 
part it is too good to drop.” 

“ So it is,” added the crowd in one voice, “ and to- 
morrow, Bertram, you must begin a study of life in the 
garb of woman.” 

To all this Bertram agreed, and bright and early 
next morning he was driven in a closed carriage to the 
railway station, clad in a gown belonging to one of 
Mother Hasgrove’s dear dead sisters — a tailor-made 
gown which had not seen daylight in many years. 
Mother Hasgrove so thoroughly enjoyed seeing Ber- 
tram in his new role that she set aside all prejudices 
and entered into the spirit of the new movement, the 
very movement which she was so irritated by the day 


That Evening, 


19 


before. She willingly loaned her gaiters, her new black 
raglan, sable muff and boa, and said to her inner self, 
apologetically : 

In the world of thought, 

From day to day, 

All kinds of draught 
Speed men away. 

It is so now, ’twas so ever. 

The man who is today a terror 
May be tomorrow the man of act most clever — 

A brother to love and a saint forever. 


r ':; 11 ^'^' ^ 


CHAPTER IV. 


All for Brotherhood. 

Months had passed, but, true to promises, the ap- 
pointed evening Bertram was again clad in woman’s 
attire and patiently awaiting the hour when Colonel 
Hasgrove should usher him to his place at the piano 
and introduce him as the wonder-working repeller. Miss 
Jones, whom all had met on a former occasion. 

“ How did you enjoy sailing around in woman’s 
gowns?” inquired Miss Conklin, when Bertram was all 
ready to go down stairs. 

“Why, I did not like it at all. It is something I 
would not do again for one hundred thousand dollars. 
I would not spend another night in jail for all the 
brotherhoods, for all the honors this world has in store 
for man, nor to pay any forfeit, however pressed.” 

“ Oh, I hadn’t heard that you had that experience,” 
explained Miss Conklin. 

Instantly Bertram remembered having demanded 
of Colonel Hasgrove secrecy. He was very sorry for 
giving this hint to Miss Conklin, and, having no redress 
but to say more, he decided to be more confidential with 
her. “Yes,” said he, “ I learned to my sorrow that our 
policemen are not as easily bribed as they have the 
name of being. It is not easy for man to dress in woman’s 
clothes outside his own house or the house of a very, 
very intimate friend. I have all my experiences written 
off in a note-book, which I would not part with for half 
Colonel Hasgrove is worth. I am now thankful that I 
am alive; thankful for my experiences. I would wish a 


20 


All for Brotherhood. 


21 


man great evil whom I would advise to spend a while in 
woman’s shoes. But I learned that only the meek and 
lowly in the seclusion of the convents and in the hovels of 
the workingmen are truly living real heavenly lives. 
They are not snubbed nor hurt by sound, look nor 
word. They place the world above them at lofty heights, 
and they enjoy God’s air, sunshine and rain, taking all 
things as a matter of course in their humility and in 
meekness. They truly inherit the earth, for they feel 
that it is their’s to enjoy. The giddy, gay, moving multi- 
tudes do not stir, upset nor fascinate their understand- 
ing. They are calm, sweet and considerate They are 
restive. In these, the heights of their soul honors, they 
dominate the world, because they do not care for it nor 
for opinions. They live in soul life, although still here.” 

“ How delightful,” said Miss Conklin. 

“Yes,” continued the man in woman’s clothes, “no 
man can live higher soul life nor enjoy happier tempera- 
ment than these people ; they are certainly on the path 
leading to the real gateway. They have a firm footing 
on the grand, solid moving walk which leads across the 
bridge of sighs, across the woeful wails of restlessness, 
and leads to a wholesome, welcomed rest.” 


CHAPTER V. 


Shifting Life’s Pictures. 

As soon as Colonel Hasgrove seated Miss Jones at 
the piano, Mr. Griffis, the superintendent of the mills, 
requested her to play, “Your Pocketbook Is Always 
Your Friend.” 

“1 will gladly do so,” replied Miss Jones, “because 
since I sang the few lines for you here on Thanksgiving, 
I have learned that the pocketbook is a very good friend, 
and if I had not had a very good and true and tried friend 
to call upon, I am afraid I should not be able to sing to you 
this evening. I will commence with the third verse, by 
Edward S. Austin.” 

This announcement awakened in all hearts a lively 
interest in Miss Jones, who poured forth in rich, sympa- 
thetic tones : 

Standing there in a crowd is a poor orphan girl. 

That woman of fashion who sneers, 

Wears a mask on her face, and her life’s brightest pearl 
Shines out thro’ her sorrow and tears. 

Blest with fortune and friends, she quickly hurries by. 
Refusing assistance to lend. 

The poor orphan shudders and exclaims with a sigh. 

Your pocketbook’s surely your friend. 

A story I’ll tell, I am sure it is true. 

To me by a good man ’twas told. 

A bank vault was entered by burglars who knew 
Where they kept all their treasures and gold. 

Now wealthy was one, the other was poor ; 

The poor man to prison they send. 

While the rich thief gets clear, and the motto sure. 

Makes his pocketbook always his friend. 


22 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


23 


Miss Jones was quite pleased with the success of 
her new role when sobs and sighs fell upon her ears. 
She knew her words reached some heart. She was quite 
unaware of the presence of the broken-hearted orphan, 
Daisy Miller, and the sad, sad history connected with 
her life, as she continued : 

You remember of reading a murder report, 

A noble, kind man was shot dead ; 

The assassin was caught and brought into court, 

Found guilty, at last, it was said. 

Now the punishment is death for a crime of the kind, 

But to hang him they didn’t intend. 

For his wealth saved his life, and stern justice was blind ; 

His pocketbook proved his best friend. 

Now remember, my boys, as you journey along. 

This friend whom you ne’er knew before, 

Will always prove faithful, and keep you from wrong, 

And banish the wolf from the door. 

Dark clouds of misfortune will o’ershadow the sky, 

But on this you may always depend ; 

When grim poverty comes, then we cannot deny. 

Our pocketbook’s always our friend. 

Yes, friends you may gather forever in life ; 

But on this you may always depend, 

That in sunshine or storm, and in peace and in' strife. 

Your pocketbook’s always your friend. 

At the close of the song Miss Jones turned from 
the piano and said: “Friends, we are now called upon to 
consider the brink of a grave which has yawned for the 
spirit of pocketbook, and it may be well to remember 
that: 


Sailing o’er life’s tumultuous ocean. 

Or deep in the sea of hardened hearts, 
May be found springs of grand emotion. 
Awakening men to their dutious parts. 


24 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


“ Today we find that men are borne down by bribes, 
corruption, fraud and crime. Their bloody battles are 
printed in the heavens. The saints could not behold 
such sights without crying out against man and his work. 
When men, statesmen, will declare a bloody war, spend 
millions found in our national treasury for artillery, to 
send thousands of uninvited souls into the Master’s 
presence, with anger, hatred and ill-will for the dying 
sentiments, we have every reason to cry out to the 
women of the nation to wake up. It is not enough to 
have a few hundred or a few thousand awake. We need 
every woman in the land to take her part, and with en- 
thusiasm, in training the coming statesman to regard 
every man his brother, and to love his brother as himself. 

“ We need every woman found within the limits of 
our vast possessions to join in an outcry against this 
political warfare. Let us unite in a resolution, to appeal 
to our statesmen to cast out the spirit of avarice and 
place a tax upon us. Not for the destruction of our 
brothers, but for their preservation, for their enlighten- 
ment, for machinery to aid them to a higher state of 
civilization, to a more plentiful supply of clothing and 
food, to a more lofty sentiment of self-respect. Let us 
question why woman has a power to exercise ? 

“ Does the hand of woman train the employer? 

“ Does the hand of woman train the employee ? 

“ If so, what then is her part in the governing princi- 
ples which underlie all the cruelty, all the misconceptions 
of justice, all the confusion, malice, pride, and discontent 
which has developed to such proportions that the very 
foundations of our republic are shaken? It is woman’s 
duty to know her part in the great battle of life. As 
womanly women, it becomes our duty to look after our 
common wants. 


25 


Shifting Lifes Pictures. 

“ Let us invite our sisters throughout the length 
and breadth of the land to aid us in shaping our land- 
scape and building up mental castles from the leveling 
principles of true womanhood, and let us not forget that 
it is not flattering to womanhood today to hear a woman 
who acts as agent for one of our great charity organiza- 
tions say that men are guilty of more revolting beliefs 
than that of mormonism, although they never fail to seat 
themselves in reserved pews in our most fashionable 
Christian churches 

Who is at fault ? 

“ Let me answer, women ; yes, women. 

“ Woman had the inviting of that man to the world; 
woman trained him from the time he left the cradle till 
he entered manhood. If the woman who invited him 
into this life and trained him for his earthly career was a 
wise and well-educated woman, that man would not so 
far forget her noble example of motherhood, nor his family 
pride, nor the upbuilding of family honors, as to stoop to 
disreputable, drunken companionships, nor give to the 
world pauper children who never bear his name. 

'‘Woman should tell her son in the cradle that instead 
of the manufacturing of instruments destructive to fellow- 
men, which embodies in part the partaking in the crime 
of murder, he should seek the art of manufacturing glass 
houses and houses on wheels, for the poor, attractive 
pyramids and monuments for the use of astronomers, 
and bring the savage to his feet by kindness, and not 
through the fraudulent deceiver, the cannon’s mouth. 

“ Fraud has been invited to mingle with our daily 
actions until mankind in general has been caught within 
its unholy grasp. Although many of the thinking men and 
women of our time have awakened to this fact, they find 
pleasure in its grasp, and instead of boldly standing up 


26 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


and slapping fraud in the face, they smile, they chuckle 
and applaud the deceit until it has ofttimes become a 
question, ‘Am I speaking to a woman or a man ? ’ 

“Just as long as one’s faith remains whole, the deceit 
is not injurious to the onlooker. But the heart of the per- 
son who plans to deceive suffers, becomes calloused, and 
as its strings becomes entangled in the effects of deceit, it 
loses its former ease in throbbing ; in its restlessness, all 
whisperings become a charge for foul practice and by 
a hairsbreath it escapes the lovelessness of a long miser- 
able life among the unpitied whom we have been forced 
to neglect or despise. In the presence of humanity, in 
spirit life, some day our fraud shall be demonstrated. 
Our fraud will silently judge us, and its judgment shall 
be for all eternity. What we may offer the world as a 
joke to-day will then remain to be seen, and just as it 
was, and as it is photographed in the Eternal eye. 

“Flights of life will not be measured by the height 
of towering buildings then, nor by towering opinions in 
printer’s ink, nor by gilded monuments. Then richness 
of thought and soul honor are the flights we shall find 
welcomed. For this reason let us appeal to our states- 
men, to our men, women and children to unite, as men 
and women should unite, and carefully consider Human- 
ity’s wants. 

“ Let us urge them to send us a national ‘ honor tax,’ 
to prepay the expenses of our great men and women while 
they traverse the continent with words of encouragement 
to the hopeless masses. Send out, at the nation’s expense, 
men and women to teach man that man was created by 
a Supreme Being, and that his soul contains memory, 
which passes out of this body, and that memory lives on 
and on in a realm where the sight of this warfare will 
cause it unrest. Let us unite in a new political warfare, 
and demand of our statesman justice for one another. 


Shifting Lifes Pictures. 


27 


“ If we do this, we cannot fail in reaching the nation’s 
heart and obtaining for ourselves glorious crowns, the 
people’s gratitude, the nation’s honor, and the removal 
of all wayside wrecks.” 

“ Come, come,” said Colonel Hasgrove, when Miss 
Jones seated herself, “Miss Jones, you must continue. 
We cannot afford to let you stop so soon. You must 
illustrate to us how passing events have reflected on 
your personal, your mirrored consciousness. If you 
think woman is at the root of all evil, say so. You 
have a right to your view, and from the darkest rays of 
your hope there may spring a brightness which may be 
powerful enough to shape the armor of the genius. 
Don’t be afraid. If there was no wrong in the world we 
would not appreciate the right.” 

Miss Jones arose and said, in a soft, womanly voice, 
which demonstrated her power for acting : 

“ Friends, I am called upon to illustrate to you 
another picture of life. Have you considered how the 
influence of the press and the wonders of science have 
united the old world with the new and invited the unity 
of thought, which was clearly illustrated when all united 
in the invoking of Heaven in common prayer for King 
Edward, ‘ That long may be his reign of true greatness.’ 
Here we find men freed from the taint of thirst for blood, 
greed or grain ; men who pray in order to lighten the 
burden and make less the grief of a fellow-man, who 
bears the dignified title of King. The providence of the 
All-wise at this instant seemed to turn a hidden key 
in all hearts when, in the midst of intense grief, he lifted 
a member of the bereaved family to a position of dignity 
and responsibility ; to a position calling forth the hap- 
piest congratulations to be offered man. 


28 


While Hopes Wei^e Kmdling, 


“ Joy and grief commingling seems to bring sym- 
pathy in every age from even the hardest heart. 

Yet that hidden brand upon man’s soul 
Doth crave for polishing ; 

From dark places comes that howl 
Which silent corridors are re-echoing, 

That those who have must give, 

And only brotherly love as king, 

Shall this universe control. 

“There are thousands who participate in shaping 
laws and in controlling nations ; who are charitably in- 
clined and go deep into the recesses of pockets and 
vaults, and give when the trumpet sounds ‘ want’ This 
sounding is not rightly understood. Science and art 
when blended have often stiffled the consciousness of 
brotherly love, and lack of this love is the cause of this 
the sound ‘ want.’ System, customs and habit have 
chilled the warmth and severed the links of friendship 
and made strangers of brothers. Almsgiving is not the 
great work of charity and brotherly love ; nor are words 
of condolence, nor the coming together of the masses 
to pay homage to the memor)^ of a dearly beloved ruler 
or hero. I believe that every sweet singer, gifted painter, 
patriotic politician and true humanitarian on both sides 
of the globe should illustrate and demonstrate true and 
real charity every time a sound found its way beyond 
his lips ; and that true charity is true brotherly love. 

“ I believe each should promote the art of making a 
new chain of friendship, uniting hearts as the present 
science has united thought, through the net work now 
encircling the wide, wide world, and that this active charity 
should cover the whole. This heart-to-heart communi- 
cation should govern thought. 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


29 


** We have thousands and hundreds of thousands of 
souls on our calendars who are endowed with the in- 
stinctive altruism which has marked the gentlemen in 
all time. We have thousands here whose mansions are 
in the hearts of their friends, and who care little for an- 
other home. We have thousands of writers who urge 
our men of wealth to erect beautiful monuments of archi- 
tectural genius, in order to delight the eye of the rustic 
population which toils for the benefit of great cities* 
Others clamor for libraries, for educational and charitable 
institutions. Again, we hear that not long ago one of our 
leading men cried out against the coming together of 
humanity, when he exclaimed: ‘Good God! if these 
terrible tenements, these over-crowded districts, these 
dark and fowl dwelling places and all the attendant 
miseries must go with industry, then I would that every 
industrial center could be destroyed, as Sodom and 
Gomorrah of old; and men driven back to the land 
where they can, at least, have the breezes, and the green 
grass, and the sunshine and the blue of heaven to look 
up to.’ This man proclaims against the crowded districts. 

“Another man claims he has figured out the cause 
of the trouble. 

“ And yet another has been found with a remedy to 
save our cities from the increasing scourge of vice and 
crime. 

“ It is our duty to view these pictures of right and 
wrong. It is our duty to weigh both cause and effect. 
It is our duty to stir woman’s thought, because if men 
and women are stirred to thinking, then we may look for 
discontent, and discontent in turn will offer its share to 
the progressive strides of our civilization. 

“ At this instant we feel that it is not our place to 
offer a remedy for Humanity’s existing wounds ; we do 


30 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 


not wish to destroy our great industrial centers ; we do 
not wish to take from any man his means of livelihood, 
nor make use of exciting speeches, with the view of 
stirring up antagonism among either the exceedingly 
wise nor the more sober-minded citizens. We wish quiet 
and peace. Our pictures were shifted for woman to 
view, and thereby behold her true position while solving 
the problems of life. 

“ Mother Eve invited death to all mankind. We are 
told that several thousand years after her time a woman 
named Anne, the wife of Joachim, lifted her thought in 
charity and prayer, and thereby invited Mary, her daugh- 
ter, the child of prayer, who, in turn, leads the whole 
human race to her Divine Son. 

“ This view of life teaches us that if we are to lift up 
our species to new and bolder forms of charity and good 
will, the change must be invited by woman. Woman 
must train man, while he is yet young, that it benumbs 
all lofty sentiment and self-respect to be found an on- 
looker and eavesdropper in the police court. That the 
words used in spicy testimony impress the soul and sinks 
deep into the spirit-heart, only to bud forth with multi- 
plying vigor, if ever overtaken by a great trial or severe 
mental struggle. Woman must close the doors of the 
state’s prison against prisoners. Close the state hospital 
against the weak of mind, and open each and every one 
of the institutions now governed by our present system 
as industrial establishments to manufacture beauteous 
creations of every artistic value and description which 
appeals to man’s higher sense of personal adornment, and 
woman should also entwine our varied houses of worship 
with ropes of roses and lilies gleaned from soil now 
left untilled. This should be woman’s mission during 
the dawn of the new era. Woman should remember 


Shifting Lifes Pictures 


31 


that many have been forced to weak-minded ranks, being 
dubbed ‘ not very level headed ’ by the cunning sharks, 
who covered their villainy by being able to shove them 
back. 

“ You are forced to ask, ^ What will be done with the 
convicts ? ’ 

In the new era woman will invite no more convicts 
to our midst. For that reason we shall then have no 
more criminals and no use for penal institutions. When 
women the world over will develop thought and brain 
power, then we will need no more poor houses, because 
brotherly love will not be found wanting anywhere. 
Woman is looking in her own private mirror today, and 
in that mirror woman sees her whole self She is hor- 
rified by the shifting pictures now shuffling to and fro. 
She shudders when she follows herself through the 
different scenes. She declares that she will reform 
her methods. Going back nineteen hundred years, 
she measures a cave. It is thirty-seven and a half feet 
long, by eleven feet three inches broad, and nine feet 
high. It is a long, dark cut in a rock, occupied by 
an ox and an ass, and a man, a woman and a child. 
She realizes for the first time that this picture teaches 
that God had chosen this cave as His son’s birthplace, 
a bare, humble spot, although He was the sole owner of 
all the vast possessions to be found under or over the 
sun; in her poverty she is now contented. She remem- 
bers that from this stall emerged the Savior, the Richness 
of all soul life, the Heart of all hearts. In this stable 
for a dwelling, woman was dignified. From this rude 
cave sprang the thought which has led civilized man 
through the pomp and glory of every great event until 
this, our own, day. This picture reveals to her woman’s 
power. 


32 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


“ Here woman learns that all natural law blends 
with the supernatural, and that thoughtful woman should 
invite ‘ Thy kingdom come,’ even during the twentieth 
century. 

“ Woman must become a magnet. She must form 
leagues and confraternities and mothers’ bands for this 
end. Because the soul honor of a pure spirit is often 
made clear through exterior charity, which is known to 
the world and the on-looker by marks of courtesy, 
friendship, words of inquiry and encouragement. 

Some women became discontented and have es- 
tablished a Woman’s Rights Union. I believe that 
woman has all the rights which belong to her today, be- 
cause woman’s habit of thought controls nations and 
men. We are living in a civilized age; it is our bounden 
duty to demonstrate our power and strength in a more 
able manner than by going to the poles to vote, or going 
to the law office to practice law. I believe woman has her 
right, but does not understand how to make use of it. 
If woman understood her right at the cradle, men at the 
head of great industries would so feel for their fellow- 
men that an appeal for vestibules to protect those em- 
ployees on street or surface cars would be unheard of ; 
man would so love his fellow-man that kindness would 
not have to come to a fellow-man through the united 
appeals of a body of women of whatever club or society. 
The cradle nourishes all thoughtless cruelty between 
man and man, and woman’s selfish pride is at the root of 
all. When will you hear of madam at the cradle making 
a sacrifice in favor of her maid? This very woman 
interferes in public affairs.” 

“ Oh, please tell us some more,” urged Daisy Miller, 
as Miss Jones lowered her voice, as if indeed about to 
faint in weak, womanly style. 


Shifting Lifes Pictures. 


33 


“ Miss Conklin must shift the next picture,” said 
Colonel Hasgrove, greatly to the relief of Miss Jones. 

“ The next picture, according to my mind,” said 
Miss Conklin, “ portrays a human being, moving about, 
throwing off his daily emanations; the rolling invisibles 
are wafted on and on by the gentle breeze, and the air 
takes them unto herself, just as she draws the water from 
the sea, and she carries these emanations on and on ; often 
she leaves them in the eyes, the ears and even the nostrils 
of king, queen, statesman and beggar, alike, and we 
cannot question her purpose. The emanations from the 
prison may cross the ocean to abide in the king’s palace ; 
this being so, the very air we breathe questions our 
purpose as soon as it hears us cry out in exciting, stirring, 
speeches against vice and vicious habits. Let us con- 
sider that the atmosphere in its supernatural silence 
reflects on our thoughtlessness until a vague hint falls 
within our hearing. The very air is forced to ask us — 
the air which is the agent that is capable of mixing the 
corn in fields by carrying its germ-like specks on and on, 
and by wafting these to other stalks, mixes quality and 
color — Why try to purify by filling the air with cries, 
only to scatter the more ? The air is a pump for dis- 
tributing to all in turn. 

“Germs are known to medical science, and that mind is 
over matter, is an established belief accepted by thousands. 
That the scale-like emanations from one’s body carries 
with it the aroma of spirit life in such proportions as to 
affect the atmosphere and impel others in the same belt 
or circle, is a hint of the new belief springing up today. 
This fact will set men and woman at work on a new line 
of investigation. It will produce new hearts and new 
minds. It contradicts no belief that ever found a place in 
the mind of man, nor drew on the heart-strings of man. 


34 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


We know that men will work on this problem, because 
they know the air certainly must be freed from taint 
before the earth can enjoy the delights of the super- 
natural kingdom. If the germs resting in our circle fall 
from bodies of high and mighty, we most likely are 
lifted up. If they come to us from the mad-house, the 
concert hall, or the rum shop, we are low spirited and 
depressed. Hear me now, my friends. 

“ Could there have been a rum shop if woman’s 
taste ruled ? For this reason woman, being the sensitive 
part of man, she must begin to care more for herself, 
she must look out for her environment, she must pray 
constantly, that only higher instincts, impulse, and 
thought, may be her endowment, and what she, in turn, 
offers mankind. As an individual, she must act as im- 
pulse to higher things, dictate and act while the spirit is 
alive within her; she must enter that God-given soul, 
consciousness, and prepare the way for coming wisdom. 

“Judging from the spirit of our times, woman is in- 
vited to cast her past pictures of self to the four winds 
and begin a new study — a new life. In beginning this 
study she will consider that it being important to free 
the air from tainted emanations, which in turn feed 
thought and affect us through the mind physically, she 
is called upon to extend her powers to an area which 
seems without limit. The mind, like the air, seems to 
be without limit, and this may be no longer the mystery 
it is now, because the mind will soon penetrate super- 
natural spheres. 

“Therefore, woman is invited to believe that the atmos- 
phere can be freed from all impurities and that all shall 
be expelled by woman’s thoughtfulness and woman’s fore- 
sight, because the impurities to be found there, which are 
injurious to soul life, are those emanating from mankind. 


Shifting Life s Pictures. 


35 


Study this theory, and God will make of women the agent 
of a new and powerful force, which will not only electrify the 
ages to come for good, but lift men and women to higher 
and nobler things. We find throughout the length and 
breadth of the land hundreds and even thousands who 
believe woman is at the root of all the depression, all the 
wars, all the strife, and all the woe to be found in the 
world today, through her lack of foresight or forethought. 
They believe that no man exists whose mother-part can 
ever be eliminated from his habit of thought. 

“ Habit of thought is the governing force of all men, 
all nations, all religion, all everything. Women, whither 
have you drifted ? Where are you going, through the 
habit of thought, which you have loaned to your son ? 

“ Have you made it a daily habit of thought to ac- 
quaint yourself with humanity and its needs? Have 
you drawn on human heart-strings? Have you tried to 
make thinking women of the thoughtless multitudes? 
Far from it. You thought only of how to outshine some 
fellow-woman. Have you invited mothers to look in 
the mirror and study pictures of life ? Have you fol- 
lowed the lines which have traced mother’s route? Here 
is where mothers will find problems worth trying to 
erase from woman’s list. Choose your setting, and then 
ask yourself : ‘ Shall I offer to the world a son ? Will 
I endow him with such habits of thought as would be- 
come an agnostic, a drunkard, or a genius ? Shall he 
become a reformer, or a conservative ? ’ Listen to the 
thoughtless mother question herself about her son : 

“ ‘ Why should I trouble myself about what he will 
be?’ Hear her reply: ‘I believe I will let him grow to 
the age of reason and then let him choose for himself.’ 
And she continues her dreaming: 'Why should I, a 
simple woman, care about the world ? Let a spiritual 


36 While Hopes Were Kindling. 

reform come when the time is ripe. God never meant 
that I should care.’ 

“Yes, dear madam, God meant that you should 
care; God exacts of you, to whom he entrusted that 
soul, many duties ; God meant that you should exercise 
over that soul what you should recognize as woman’s 
rights.” 

The next picture v^as shifted by an enthusiast. 

“ Our politicians say that we are now at a crisis in 
the history of the race,” said Madam Storms, who was a 
reform delegate and the guest of Mrs. Griffis, the wife of 
Superintendent Griffis. “If this is true, shall woman 
illumine the earth or be a slave in her own temple? 

“ Shall the hands of the toilers be shackled, or will 
they enjoy the fruits of their labor? 

“ Are the employers and employees not equal when 
they come into this world and emerge from the cradle, 
if cared for by good hands ? 

“Are woman’s dirty fingers today laid on the 
Goddess of Liberty and Justice, through her sons, who 
are pillaging the temples of humanity? 

“Are we not wearied by their trickery and sham? 

“ We are told that her sons and brothers are fast 
becoming a race of manipulators and corruptionists, 
forcing masses into helplessness. If there is truth in 
this statement, what, then, is her part ? Does she not 
contribute a share in all government ? 

“ Dear sisters, one and all, as daughter, wife and 
mother, you should extend your rights, not forgetting 
your duty to your neighbor. Hospitality is not ex- 
tended today with the open-handed mannerisms of olden 
times to our friends who live in hotels, except by a few 
of us who can afford to spend two, three or ten dollars 
for the services of a maid to cater .sandwiches or refresh- 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


37 


ments. If our friend should call two, three or a dozen 
times, we are called to an account by our neighbors, too, 
for they must know which of the women of the house- 
hold has been the attraction. To avoid gossip, our men 
friends are forced from our firesides to the bar-room, the 
hotel lobby or the club-room, and not infrequently to 
the prison. When we shall have learned and extended 
our true rights, we will open the doors of our homes, 
morning, noon and evening, to the visits of our friends. 
There will be no formality, no need of hatchets, no pride 
nor style governing our hearts. Then we will not fear 
our fellow-woman nor the intentions of our fellow-man. 
When he or she shall have passed into the street, we 
shall be entirely above the habit, which is commonly 
practiced today, of picking his character to pieces and 
throwing it to the four winds. It is our right to lessen 
the daily attendance by those who hold title to member- 
ship of clubs. It is our right to encourage old-fashioned 
hospitality, thereby encouraging an improvement on the 
present system, which has developed an estrangement 
between man and home. If we do this, it will tend as 
one mark of our sincerity in a noble movement, and man 
will be forced to admit: 

“ Though years may have passed, and his dear mother 
May be mouldering ’neath the sod. 

That he can trust her sainted spirit, 

Revelling in the home of God. 

“ It is our duty to stamp out the wrong which many 
of our women have invited to us through their foolish 
methods. Ask yourselves the result of woman’s folly of 
today. How many women can you choose out of the hun- 
dreds whom you know who are capable of doing house- 
keeping? How many know how to make their own 


38 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


clothes? Can you find five out of ten you can recommend 
as efficient housewives, whom you would willingly trust 
with your brother’s interests, if he be a poor man. Then 
call to mind the hundreds of men and women who are 
depending upon sisters, brothers, friends and neighbors 
for one room, which they call home, and a seat at the 
table; also an entrance to the front door; who are classed 
by their brothers and sisters in the circle in which they 
move as cranks; whose position is most embarrassing, 
although they pay their way and might easily have 
enough to support themselves all their lives, if they were 
not charged exorbitant prices for their board whilst out 
of employment, or when they are unequal to the strain 
which their profession demands. A great many women 
and men are obliged to rest mentally and physically for 
many months who are not sick enough to go to the 
hospital, and are yet helpless, being unable to fill their 
former positions. 

“ At present there are homes and associations where 
working-women may board, if they are out of employ- 
ment, for three dollars a week. Should a woman wish to 
stop in a house of this kind while not in perfect health, 
she is placed in a very trying position. She is obliged 
to sleep in a room with a dozen or more persons. A 
woman who has ever been accustomed to fine surround- 
ings, and who has been used to the privacy of her own 
room, cannot possibly gain health or strength in such 
surroundings as these. She cannot secure a place in a 
boarding house, where she can have a room to herself, 
for less than five dollars a week. And there are but few 
working women who lay aside money enough during 
their younger days to pay five dollars a week, or even 
three dollars a week, for many years. Besides this, there 
is no way open through which they can earn in any other 


Shifting Lifes Pictures. 


39 


capacity. Therefore, they are forced to idleness and to 
the spending of every cent they have. This creates 
despair and discouragement, they think and continue to 
think until they are overtaken by serious illness on 
account of their unfortunate condition. Instead of gain- 
ing strength, they relax into a state of general debility, 
and very often become dependents for life on the various 
charities. 

“ To remedy this growing evil,” continued Madam 
Storms, “ I hope to see buildings erected and officered by 
an association created for the purpose, and looked after 
by a superintendent, hired by the association to see that 
the buildings and rooms therein are kept in perfect order. 
You all know well that a building large enough to house 
the helpless in this district can be made from two thou- 
sand dollars’ worth of lumber; the cellar, doors and 
windows might cost more; the carpenter’s wages and 
hardware bill may be summed up at one thousand dollars. 

“There, now,” she continued, “you have for less than 
six thousand dollars a house which may be divided into 
as many small rooms as might house one hundred 
persons. Let a capitalist erect the building, or let an 
association erect it without the object of doubling this 
money being the first consideration. Woman might go 
and pay her way in a building, which might be built on 
land valued at thirty dollars an acre or less, having a 
river frontage, supplying natural drainage. The charges 
being fixed for her at the rate of eight per cent, interest 
on the one-hundredth part of the entire expense. This 
would give the cash investment reasonable returns, and 
it would enable woman to enjoy her own room without 
feeling indebted to any charity or alms-giving association, 
and save her from the horrors of living in a chance 
boarding house, as is clearly illustrated in the following 


40 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


sketch, written by Kate McDonald, as her personal 
experiences while studying life in the metropolis, dated 
September lo, 1900. Hear this, my friends,” said Madam 
Storms, as she read the following sketch : 

“‘Someone suggested that we put an advertisement 
for a furnished room in the paper and see how many 
answers we would get. We all agreed, as students in 
life’s problem, that this would be a capital idea, and im- 
mediately wrote out the following advertisement, which 
was telephoned at once to The World: ‘ Three young 
ladies would like a large, comfortably-furnished room, 
with gas and bath.’ We received over thirty answers 
before that hour the next evening. We were delighted, 
because that would give us a view of the interior of a 
great many boarding houses. ’ We divided the letters, 
each girl taking ten ; then we started out alone. So be- 
tween us we called at the thirty places that evening, and, 
although we returned at a late hour, we discussed our 
evening’s experiences, and Elsie’s seemed the most marked 
of all. 

“ ‘At the residence of a widow, who lived in a four- 
story brown-stone house, when Elsie entered the room, 
she looked about and inquired about the heating of it. 
‘Oh,’ said the widow, ‘this house is so warm, we rarely 
need to light the furnace. I have small asbestos gas 
heaters, which may be attached by a rubber tube to the 
gas jet, which I furnish at an expense of forty cents a 
week (making rental ^^2.95 for a room 10 x 10), and that 
sufficiently heats the room.’ ‘ Then what would we do 
for light?’ inquired Elsie; ‘I see there is but one burner 
in the room.’ ‘ The lady who occupied this room,’ said 
she, ‘was away all day; at night she used a candle, the 
gas hurt her eyes ; besides, she retired very early. Of 
course you know it is healthier to do so.’ 


Shifting Lifes Pictures. 


41 


“‘Elsie refused the room, and asked: ‘Have you no 
room to let on the fourth floor ? ’ ‘ No,’ said she, ‘ the 

rooms on the fourth floor are all taken by young women 
who attend to their own rooms, and all I have to do 
with them is to place their towels and sheets on Satur- 
day night and call to get my rent when it is due. The 
same people have been there since I took the house. 
The gas and running water does not extend to that 
floor, because when the roof of this house needed fixing, 
I had the hall extended the length of the house and the 
rooms cut up for rental purposes, so that now the middle 
rooms are lighted by the transoms leading from the 
larger ones. The light there is not very good, but as I 
can get a dollar and fifty cents a week for each room, it 
has paid me very well to have the floor divided.’ Enter- 
ing a larger room, she added : ‘ Do you wish this room ? 
If so, you may have it for seven dollars a week,’ adding, 
‘ they give good table-board next door for four dollars 
and a half a week. If you buy a ticket, you may get it 
for four dollars, which pays for twenty-one meals, and 
you need only take a meal now and then ; one meal a 
day or one meal in ten days, your ticket is always good 
until used. By taking one meal a day it would last 
twenty-one days.’ 

“‘The grandeur of several of the boarding houses 
which we entered fairly dazzled us, while the filth and 
ignorance at others was disheartening.’ Study this pic- 
ture,” said Madam Storms, “ and then ask the working- 
women of our land if they refuse to unite in a movement 
toward the developing of true home sentiment?” Madam 
Storms continued to read from Kate McDonald’s record, 
while all listened attentively to the following: 

“‘A young woman, who appeared ill the day I 
secured work at the factory, was not at her machine 


42 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 


the next day. I overheard whispering among the girls 
that this would be the last of her. They harshly con- 
demned her for her * cheek ’ in keeping the machine for 
herself when she could not turn out over two dozen a 
day. They said it was indeed imposing on the firm to 
have the likes of her around. 

'“The unchristianlike remarks of one and all of the 
operators surprised me. I asked for her address, which 
no one seemed to know, although she had been at work 
in the factory for years. I was then seized with restless- 
ness, and made an excuse that my thread was too coarse 
for my work, and feigning ignorance of the rules, I did 
not send the errand girl to the superintendent for the 
thread, but went down through that sea of people, and 
machines to the desk, which was about one hundred and 
thirty feet from where my machine was placed When I 
asked for the thread the superintendent was shocked and 
explained to me the dreadful mistake I had made in coming 
for the thread myself. I then told her quietly that I could 
not work any longer, because I was haunted by the mem- 
ory of the girl who had looked so ill the day before. 

‘“The superintendent gave me the address, I left the 
building, and soon found myself at the very house Elsie 
had given the description of the night before. I asked 
to see Miss Schonleber, and was told to go to the fourth 
floor and I would find her in room three. I entered the 
room and found the dear girl was very weak. The room 
was dark, and the smudge of kerosene oil and linen made 
the air stifling. The transom was open between that 
and the side-rooms next, also the transom leading to the 
hall. On a table at the head of her bed there was a 
banana, an orange, a candlestick and a box of candles, 
also a lamp. One chair, the narrow bed, trunk and 
bureau filled the room. Although the air was bad and 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


43 


the bed clothes worn, the general impression denoted 
that the occupant had been in a higher circle at some 
time. I gazed upon her sad, feverish face for a long time. 
I hardly knew what to say to her or what to do. I asked 
if she was a Catholic, and she said, ‘Yes,’ and also that 
she had been to confession last Thursday, and that she 
received Holy Communion on Friday morning, and that 
the doctor had been there in the morning, adding, ‘I 
called at his office on my way home from the factory 
last evening, and he said I must remain in bed all day 
today, and he would call here this morning, because he 
was afraid I would have a hemorrhage; my voice being 
so nearly gone meant the approach of a great change.’ 
While she was talking she looked very troubled. I 
asked her if I could get her some nourishment and she 
said yes ; that one teaspoonful of whisky in a goblet of 
milk was what the doctor had ordered for drink, and a 
little banana, egg or toast for food, but that raw egg and 
milk was all that she could take. She appeared to be- 
come more and more troubled, and seemed to want to 
leave her bed. I helped her to the chair. Those tremb- 
ling hands I shall never forget. The miserable cotton 
blankets I muffled about her almost chilled me to death 
to feel them. She did not feel the cold, and she ex- 
plained that it was but her weakness that made her 
tremble. I could not stand it to see her sitting up, so I 
put her back to bed, and, after rubbing her with alcohol, 
I read to her extracts from the prayer book, which pleased 
her very much; but the intense confusion and drawing 
of the muscles of the face disturbed me, and I wondered 
if it was something which troubled her conscience, and 
I asked her if she would like to see the priest. She 
said yes ; that if word was left at the priest’s house, he 
would call the next day. She said the priests in New 


44 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


York had certain hours to visit the sick, and would not 
call at another time, except in case of an accident. That 
they must always be notified in advance. I doubted the 
girl, for I knew priests were God’s chosen disciples; al- 
ways willing to call where anyone was sick, no matter 
where, either day or night, in order to help console and 
encourage the grief-stricken and the oppressed. The 
girl was as comfortable as I could make her, so I left, 
promising to return in the afternoon. I then went to a 
priest’s house near by, and told the man whom I met at 
the door that a young woman at such a number was ill. 
I showed by my manner that I was nervous about giving 
the order, and I surprised the man very much when I 
could not explain to him who the girl was, nor the name 
of the family where she boarded. From the priest’s 
house I went to the store of Edward Ridley & Son, 
where I ate my lunch in the waiting room. I purchased 
some red flannel, in order to wrap the girl’s body in hot 
woolen cloths ; then I bought a pair of sheets and pillow 
cases, a night-gown and a suit of underwear. I thought 
the girl would need them, if not I could make use of 
them; but I was sure the poor girl had nothing to wear, 
in case she was overtaken by the messenger of death. 
This done, I went to a grocer’s for candy and lemons, 
and, with all haste, returned to the dark, cheerless room, 
where I found my patient very much weaker than when 
I left in the morning. Then I went down stairs and told 
the landlady. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘we are used to her lying 
a-bed. She will be all right in a day or so.’ Until I 
almost begged her to allow me to come into the room 
and heat the flannel cloths, she stood without making a 
move. At last she filled the oil stove and cleaned the 
lamp for me, while I warmed the flannel cloths on a 
stove in the back parlor. 


Shifting Lifes Pictures. 


45 


“ ‘ I heard the whisperings of her daughter and 
nephew about people coming into folks’ houses meddling 
with other people’s business. I heard them say some- 
thing about cranks and strangers, and to look out for 
them. I was very much disturbed at hearing this, but I 
hastened at once to the bedside of the poor girl. She 
whispered that if she could cough up what was in her 
throat she would be all right, and that she was so tired 
and sleepy. She said she had hosts of friends when she 
had means, but after her father’s death her brother 
married a woman who did not make her welcome at the 
old homestead, and she, not having been accustomed to 
hard work, was then too old to teach school, or take a 
public position. The only thing she could do was to 
place work to the sewing machine in the factory. At 
first, she said, she earned nine dollars a week, but prices 
were cut down two years ago, so that she could only earn 
six dollars. She said that ever since she had moved into 
this house that, for some reason or another, she had been 
troubled with coughs and colds and had been obliged to 
take medicine all the time. I thought to myself, why 
not, poor girl. You are another one of these who are 
working without common sense. Your bed has not been 
aired during this time, and no doubt you drank coffee 
every morning which was made over an oil stove, and 
judging from what your landlady said to Elsie last night, 
you have slept on damp sheets every night since you 
came into this house. There was never a fire in your 
room, except the heat from the oil stove, which, in itself, 
creates a smudge. While I was thus reflecting, the girl 
interrupted me by saying that she went to a specialist for 
catarrh and lung trouble, took steam baths and all sorts 
of treatment, till six months ago, then her money gave 
out, and since that time she managed to earn enough to 


46 While Hopes Were Kindling. 

pay her rent, and also for the bit she was able to eat, 
‘but,’ said she, ‘this cold spell is so hard on me,’ and her 
voice died away. She slept for some time and I sat there 
watching her, while I meditated on everlasting life and 
peace, and how soon grim death must enter this room 
and claim his own. I was then startled by the ringing 
of the bell down stairs. I stepped into the hall, because 
I thought it might be the priest. I heard a voice saying, 
‘ Yes, Father, Miss Schonleber has remained in her room 
all day today. Some strange girl has been annoying me 
with her importance, and is interfering with things which 
do not concern her. She is from the shirt factory, and 
she is also from some country place, and Miss Schonleber’s 
delicate appearance has excited her, so it is she who is 
doing all the worrying. Indeed no. Father, it is not 
necessary for you to climb up to the top of the house; 
won’t you come in and sit down for a few minutes.’ The 
priest must have been in a hurry, for he went away, and 
when the door closed after him I heard the same voice 
say, ‘ Indeed, I would have been ashamed of the room. 
I would not like the priest to know we would keep such 
a looking place; it would be a disgrace to us; so Miss 
McDonald, whoever she is, got left for her painstaking. 
Why, of course,’ the voice continued, ‘ Miss Schonleber 
will be all right by tomorrow.’ 

“ ‘ I felt very guilty for eavesdropping, but I said to 
myself, yes, I hope she will be all right tomorrow. I 
turned into the room again and knelt at the girl’s bed- 
side, broken in heart and mind. Thought I, Miss Schon- 
leber is dying as I am liable to die, in a strange land, a 
factory girl in an attic, in a Christian home, but God grant 
as I am at her bedside, someone may be at mine. I 
remained on my knees for hours, beside that unconscious 
form. I put my hands under the bed clothing to see if 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


47 


her feet were warm, but oh the chill of death was then 
upon her. Her feet were cold from toes to ankles, and 
I wrapped flannel cloths closer to them. Then I felt up 
towards her knees, and could follow the intense heat to 
the upper part of the body. I compared it to the cold 
and claminess of her feet. I wondered if it indicated 
that it was the soul of life which had begun to contract, 
first withdrawing from the feet, then gradually, slowly 
withdrawing little by little. I looked at that face, I 
thought that she must be dying, but I had never been at 
the bedside of a dying one and I did not know. I bathed 
and rubbed her with alcohol till the warmth came back, 
and she whispered that I hurt her. I saw her darkened, 
troubled features contract and expand, and I placed the 
lamp where the light would not reflect too brightly on 
her face. Her eyes rolled around the room, as if looking 
for someone, a shade of brightness and then a shade of 
darkness would overshadow her countenance. I watched 
her and I wondered if I was but dreaming, and if I was, 
indeed, the crank whom the people down stairs said I was. 
Or was it but the messenger of death that was flitting 
about me. I arose and I knelt again, but I held her 
hand in mine. I looked into those eyes and I asked her 
if there was anything she wished me to tell anyone for 
her, or if there was anything she would like to have done. 
She looked troubled, but said nothing for some time, then 
she whispered, ‘ Oh, I am so smothered, I am so sleepy. 
Today is Sunday. Have they all gone to mass?’ I 
told her it was but Wednesday, and I became frightened 
almost to death. I could not stand her delirium, so I 
rushed down stairs, and I knocked at the door of a room 
occupied by a music teacher, also at the room in which 
the landlady said a great politician stayed, and I told 
each of them that I knew this girl was almost gone. 


48 While Hopes Were Kindling. 

They looked at me amazedly, and finally came upstairs 
with me. They looked at Miss Schonleber, and made a 
remark about something. She replied, T will be all right 
when I have a good sound sleep.’ They looked at me 
curiously, then left the room and went down stairs with 
an air of I-told-you-so. I followed them and went down 
to the parlor, I repeated the same story to the landlady, 
who said she would come up and see Miss Schonleber 
after a little while. I hastened back to the room, and I 
found Miss Schonleber in a faint. Soon she became 
aroused and whispered, ‘ Oh, I am so warm. Sweet 
Jesus, have mercy on me, and help me to save my soul. 
I am smothering, my Jesus, mercy.’ She continued to 
lisp words which were inaudible, with a peculiar stare in 
her eyes. Her hands would close tightly and loosen 
again, her eyelids dropping, her lips moving. I watched 
her face till, in a few moments, all movement ceased, and 
she had breathed forth her spirit I hope into the company 
of holy spirits, whose dissolution had taken place nearly 
two thousand years before. 

‘ I was so grief-stricken that I followed that spirit 
by the powers of my soul, accompanying her to that final 
tribunal, where I knelt, pleading with God that if it might 
be possible, if there still remained temporal punishment 
due to her for sin, that I would willingly suffer it for her, 
in order that she might be admitted that very night into 
the presence of the Most Holy for all eternity. 

“‘Then I rushed down stairs and told the landlady 
that all was over. She screamed and she shed great 
thimble-full tears, and in her assumed grief, she shocked 
the very air itself. Her daughter, the music teacher and 
the politician responded at once, and all were then ready 
to do all in their power for the poor girl. The nephew 
rushed out for the undertaker and the undertaker’s 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


49 


woman came and attended to the dead body at once. 
The sheets and the underwear I bought in the morning 
were used on the body of the poor girl. The under- 
taker secured a permit at once, and the body was placed 
in a coffin and hustled out to a morgue in the rear of a 
shop. As soon as the body was taken out, the landlady 
became very officious, and said the girl would be buried 
at Calvary on Friday; that her remains would be blessed 
at the little chapel in Calvary Cemetery, and that as the 
girl was so poor, the hearse and one carriage was all that 
would be needed. Her daughter then brought me a cup 
of tea and seated me in the parlor while I drank it. She 
said I must get my nerves settled, so as to be able to 
appear on the street, in order to get home to my lodging 
house. When the young lawyers who occupied the 
front room entered, their attention was called to some- 
thing by the young lady ; I think it was a picture. They 
did not know that the undertaker had just gone out of 
the house with the remains of a tenant. They seemed 
very much amused while relating a joke which had been 
played on them that evening. The daughter introduced 
the men to me, before whom I was passed off as a friend, 
but I was passed out of the house as a crank. 

“*The nephew accompanied me to the Third Avenue 
elevated station. He did not seem inclined to speak of 
the girl’s sad death or plans connected with her funeral. 
When we reached Third Avenue, I said: ‘ I presume you 
will sit up all night tonight’ ‘Oh, no,’ said he, ‘Mr. 
Undertaker has two more in the morgue that died in 
lodging houses, and he will take care of all three to- 
gether. You know it would not pay him to take the 
trouble of going for a burial permit for each one separate.’ 
His explanation ended as I reached the ticket office and 
the train was pulling into the station, so, without wait- 


50 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


ing to say good-night to him, I forced my way through 
the crowd on the platform and into the train. It was 
11:30 when I reached my boarding house, where I found 
my friends very much excited on account of my absence. 
They had worried all evening about me. 

“ * Their faces brightened up the moment I entered, 
only to darken again when I related my experiences and 
told how, accidentally, I had learned the undertaker's 
name, adding that we must go to the directory the next 
day and find out the name of the street and the number 
of his shop, and perhaps in that way we might find out 
how poor Miss Schonleber’s remains would be disposed 
of. We did so, and when the undertaker took us into 
the morgue, we found in the middle of the room on the 
floor the poor girl’s coffin resting upon another. He 
kindly opened the coffin which held all that remained of 
poor Miss Schonleber, with the night-gown for a shroud 
and the sheets neatly draped over the lower part of her 
body. The three of us united in buying a pretty brown 
serge shroud, and waited till the undertaker had put it 
on the girl, praying while he did so that God would 
grant that we might be permitted to wear robes of charity 
and good will while traveling down life’s road, and robes 
of peace and happiness in our eternal home, and we 
earnestly prayed that our own bedside at the hour 
of death might be surrounded by kind hands and loving 
hearts, and that our bodies as the temples of our souls 
might be cared for in our own homes, and have all the 
attention necessary for a Christian-like burial, and, rather 
than be carried to a morgue, we might be allowed to rest 
in a church. We returned home that night sadder, but 
wiser girls.’ 

“ Here, my friends, is a true picture of life and death 
from the pen of a girl who made it her business to study 


Shifting Lifes Pictures. 


51 


the problems which surround thousands of our sisters at 
the present time, and have caused many to bid farewell 
to mother earth while in a heartless, hopeless condi-. 
tion,” said Madam Storms, adding: 

‘‘Now, tell me, would one of you wish to see a 
member of your family dying in an attic in a boarding 
house, or would you care to be there yourself? 

“ Did I hear you answer no ? Well, then,” continued 
Madam, “provide for old age ; provide for when you are 
unable to tread the weary round of toil.” 

“ Lessons are all very well,” said Charley Brown, in 
an undertone, “ but the point is, how are we to undo the 
system responsible for this state of affairs ? ” 

“ It would be an easy matter to undo the rules 
responsible for all the trouble,” replied Madam Storms, 
“if all girls were taught, while spending the years 
between seven and twelve, that woman is the soul of the 
home, and God the soul of souls; and at the age of 
twelve, if they were taught all moral discipline necessary 
to carry them through life; and at the age of fifteen, the 
housewifely duties of wife and mother, and also that on all 
superior men the influence of wife and mother is apparent, 
and that as they treat the aged, so shall the Lord return 
unto them the kindness born of wisdom and justice.” 

“Well,” explained Colonel Hasgrove,“my friends, the 
record Madam Storms has just read to you recalls to my 
mind that it was written by Mrs. Albert Stevens’ maid. 
She was employed by Mrs. Stevens to go to New York 
and study life and times among the working women. 
This part of her record has been the subject of many dis- 
cussions, and many have said that the priest should have 
investigated, and learned for himself whether the woman 
was ill or not. Others claim, that this only gives us a 
practical side of life the world over. 


52 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


“ The Pope in the great City of Rome is removed, 
through social custom and the habit of thought, handed 
down by ages, from seeing, feeling and extending practi- 
cal sympathy to suffering elements of humanity, both in 
Italy and many other places that are to be found ’neath 
the shadow of many of the great edifices under his con- 
trol. The kings and queens and great rulers in the 
political world are also removed from the gloomy pic- 
tures of intense suffering to be found within the borders 
of their vast possessions. Habit of thought of men, of 
women and nations is swiftly drifting down the foul cur- 
rent leading directly to hardship, misery and broken- 
hearted despair. Women will be found dying in attics 
’neath the very church towers, until churches and syna- 
gogues will send out men and women to make social all 
unsocial ranks; to create a new system of social eti- 
quette and a new habit of thought. Ministers, presidents 
and even popes are all in this gilded realm, which is en- 
tirely removed from want and suffering, and we cannot 
consistently blame them as individuals.” 

“Well,” said Madam Storms, “Mr. Hasgrove, you 
have suggested to my mind a new thought, a practical 
thought. No doubt if all the charities throughout the 
world would, besides the old law of ‘ Feed the hungry, 
clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty,’ go forth 
and lift up their voices in the declaration : ' We will train 
all how to work ; we will make work for all ; we shall 
have no hungry, we shall have no thirsty ; our brothers 
shall not be untutored, they shall not be found naked,’ 
then we would find no king accused of hardness of heart, 
no churchmen accused of neglect of duties, no church- 
women slaves to the offspring of vice, no asylums filled 
with the scum of society. Then there would be found 
no religious, no preacher, no priest, no rabbi, who 


Skifiing Lifes Pictures. 


53 


was not fulfilling the duties prescribed for him by Divine 
Authority, and it strikes me,” continued Madam Storms, 
“ that the time is not far off when each and every church 
throughout the world will find illuminations for evening 
services magnified by magnetic words falling from lips 
of men whose heart and soul honors depend on the 
numbers they can draw into the churches ; by men who 
will not request the saloonkeeper to close his door until 
they have gone forth and made a business for the poor 
fellow, by which he could support those depending on 
his efforts for livelihood. My friends, in this is true 
brotherhood ; in this is true human interest, and the 
recognizing of God as the Father of all.” 

At the close of Madame Storm’s remarks, Miss 
Conklin arose, and said : 

Oh, go down woman’s staircase, dear madam ! Go 
stand at the pier near that mother and her three sons 
who stood there thirty years ago. ‘ Sir,’ said she, ^ my 
boys are under age. Go on, children.’ She dropped 
her ticket in the chopper at the gate. She taught her 
three sons that for nine cents it paid to sell the whole 
truth. There was an accident ; the boat sank ; her three 
sons were saved; mother was lost. Her sons respected 
her memory. They respect her wisdom and her un- 
questionable understanding of thrift. 

“ In the course of time one son became a police 
captain and afterwards a government detective. His 
brothers were not so fortunate. One became a lock- 
smith, the other a plumber. All three inherited mother’s 
greed, mother’s thought, force of grasp, and grab when 
you can, and do your neighbor every time you get a 
chance ; but abide your time, wait patiently ; the chance 
will come. 


54 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


The detective earned for himself a world-wide rep- 
utation as a shrewd and watchful guardian of peace and 
property — one of the best in the interest of the govern- 
ment. His reputation established, now he turns over 
the leaf of grab, grasp, and go do your neighbor. His 
brothers he lifts from their humble positions. He and 
they build a net work — a robbery — so the press tells us. 
Thief cannot be hunted down; entered house with a 
duplicate key; burglary next; entered through the 
cellar. At another time he becomes a lineman ; exam- 
ines the telephone service in the home of the million- 
aire ; draws a plan of the house ; later all the valuables 
are removed. A child was stolen ; ransom demanded ; 
reward received, but no man, no woman, no child is able 
to find out who committed the dastardly, savage deed. 

“ Let us shuffle the picture. We find that these 
men are now fathers. They are training their boys. 
Three fathers with three families, whose crimes are 
multiplying rapidly. Here we have criminals soaring 
in high places. Criminals who pretend to be 
protecting the community. Criminals who were sus- 
pected by honest men; by men whose honesty and truth- 
fulness reflected their inner suspicions. How were they 
treated for their honesty by the detective. They were 
plotted against. They were brought into a net work of 
circumstances by the real detectives, who were also the 
criminals, and honesty and truth found its way under 
circumstantial evidence, until our giant-like detective 
placed the last one whose good will he doubted under 
lock and key and behind prison bars. And only to 
think of it! One narrow-minded, thoughtless, grasping 
woman invited all this strife and crime, which is so 
rapidly multiplying, to take root upon the otherwise 
beautiful earth. 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


55 


“ Woman, why doubt your power for good, when 
you see how far one of your sex can send the evil which 
she, a woman, thoughtlessly invited to come to stay?”^ 
Miss Conklin ceased to speak. 

At the close of Miss Conklin’s remarks. Miss Jones 
arose and shifted another illustration, by saying: 

“ Are you not ready to pledge yourself to the ser- 
vice of high heaven and to the thought of repelling evil ? 
Repelling by every effort of your thought, as well as 
your word and your deed. Go forth and offer encourage- 
ment to the hopelessly poor down in the coal mines. 

“ Lift up the illiterate man. Remember that his 
heart throbs as fast and as surely as the heart of the 
statesman. Deal with the poor miner as you would 
deal with a more fortunate brother. It is an undisputed 
fact that sound, sight and light -affect all hearts, and 
honorable dealings never chilled nor sent a heart down 
to lower depths of greed and gain. Send forth the sparkle 
to kindle the hopeful flame. 

“ Pictures of life have been shifted and poems of 
sympathy have been read for men who reap and sow, by 
men and women who live in unstable, gilded palaces; by 
many who are gifted with book wisdom and who entirely 
lack the wisdom of experience, who little know of what 
they speak ; unlike the poor miners, those who reap and 
sow are happy and contented. 

“ He who tills the soil carries upon his shoulders 
the burdens of the nation, but his yoke is light. He 
may be compared to the cornerstone of the government 
building at Washington, buried down deep, deep out of 
sight and seldom thought of; yet he is enjoying the 
supreme, delightful, height of consciousness of how need- 
ful he is to the whole part of the construction. He is 
the fundamental principle upon which our national char- 


56 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


acter depends. Take this away and soon the whole 
structure will crumble and decay. Oh, how great should 
be his praises! for he is indeed the genius. His work is 
healthful; the pity is that so much land is still un- 
peopled, unoccupied, while so much distress is to be 
found among the unemployed, who look with dread at 
the approach of the butcher, baker and landlord. 

“You men here read of strife, but strife in print is 
all the strife you feel. You have your own milk, chickens, 
pork and garden stuff ; your wages are forthcoming at 
the end of each month. What peace! What true hap- 
piness ! What you enjoy you do not appreciate; you 
cannot, for want of contrasting scenes. Your wives are 
able to bake your bread, and do your sewing and mend- 
ing. You know nothing of the housewife’s detail, which 
hampers the success of your city brothers as a whole. Yet 
you are a reasoning people. You are able to solve many 
problems. You are undisturbed by the city’s din and noises. 
You hear no fire alarm, no ambulance gong. Your ears 
are not irritated by the cries of the ragmen, nor the bells 
of the umbrella-menders nor scissor-grinders. When 
there is a great calamity your hearts are not called upon 
to throb at the cries of the newsboys’ ‘ Extra.’ Your 
peace of mind is neither disturbed at night nor by day. 

“Can your happiness be continued in your child- 
ren? I fear not. You thirty men, count your boys. 
Here we find that in a few years you will thrust upon 
the world one hundred and twenty able-bodied men, 
who were brought up in plain, wholesome surroundings, 
unacquainted with strife. 

“You flagman at the switch, or you teamster, seven 
years from now you hope to spend your forty-fifth year. 
Your son at that date enters his twenty-first. Do you 
intend to resign your position in his favor? No; well. 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


57 


then let us follow one of your one hundred able-bodied 
young men. Will he move to the backwoods and take 
up farming? No? Why? Because he has never been 
trained to do so. He reads of the city; of how poor 
boys became rich. He forgets that they became rich 
because the population in their day was not so crowded 
as we find it today, and because competition was not as 
lively as it is at this date. 

“Well, you decide to send him to the city. He 
finds board in a stuffy lodging house. He is energetic; 
he finds work, but being a stranger, he cannot compete 
with those who are undermining him in his position. 
He loses this job and finds another in a place where his 
clothing is wet while at work; he contracts a cold; he 
resorts to a drug, finally to whisky; he gradually loses 
strength; he sleeps on bedding which has been in use 
for twenty years. Men of every class and clime have 
taken sweats for colds, or fevers, or toothache, or some- 
thing, and used that same mattress. The sheets, too, are 
never thoroughly aired in hot air when they leave the 
laundry. Your son Wonders why his health became im- 
paired. He wonders why he cannot gain health and 
strength. His position he must give up. He drifts to 
a free hospital, remains there for months as a charge on 
the city. When he leaves it he feels as if he had become 
a subject branded by charitable branding irons. This 
affects his proud consciousness, and the result is he is 
gloomy, friendless, and, not being very strong, feels like 
one should expect a worthless sot to feel. He steps for- 
ward again. ‘Where were you last employed?’ he is 
questioned when he asks for work. Then he tells his 
story. The employer gives him no work, because he is 
pale and weak. 

“ He seeks work for weeks. His money is all gone. 
He asks for food and lodgings, and this is an offence to 


58 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


our well-bred society ladies and gentlemen of today. He 
is given some food, and he is suspected. Madam touches 
the alarm, which is like a little clock behind her closed 
door, and almost immediately your son, that tramp, is 
behind the bars in the jail, after getting a good clubbing 
from the able-bodied man who is there to guard the 
citizens’ rights. 

“Once branded in his soul’s consciousness as having 
been the victim of charitable aid, he begins to sink with- 
in himself Then branded as a jail-bird, he has lost hope 
and courage, and from year to year, during the re- 
mainder of that once noble young man’s life, we may 
expect to find him either an inmate of an inebriate asy- 
lum, a hospital, jail, poor house, or some place that has 
open doors for victims of woman’s coldness of heart. 

“Free hospitals and free treatment is one of the 
worst features of our time. Free hospitals were created 
for scientific reasons, but this freedom has invited abuses, 
and all should avoid patronizing such places. A free 
hospital gives giddy woman time for walking the streets, 
when her place should be at home. It tends to make 
physicians dishonest and nurses schemers, while the 
persons who seek relief, in nine cases out of ten, could 
and would pay their way if the free hospital had not ex- 
tended this free invitation to fraud ; an invitation which 
hurts the practice of the trustworthy physician, and 
keeps quacks brightened up so they can readily outwit 
the law. 

“ You who are living joyous, peaceful lives here in 
the bosom of your families, shrink and shudder at the 
sight of these pictures. But what is real, must not be 
thought of lightly. In nine cases out of ten unwhole- 
some food and drink are the causes of the distressing 
diseases treated in the free hospitals. 


Shifting Lifes Pictures. 


59 


“ Farmers forget the peace of mind and the high and 
lofty thought which is truly theirs. Lofty thought is 
theirs by the nature of their environment ; they are not 
wearied by the very breath of their neighbors ; they are 
not crushed by snubs nor insults at this gathering or 
that, and they are not suffering disease from poisonous, 
rotted food from unwholesome market places. 

“We seldom hear of a farmer’s daughter guilty of 
the giddy, foolish strides in society which we find in so 
many girls of the middle classes in our cities. But we 
seldom find mothers in those peaceful districts who en- 
joy the continued prosperity of their children, because 
they allow their affections to stamp out all love of travel, 
all ambition to explore unknown lands, unknown seas. 
Their absolute content destroys youthful ambition. They 
forget what ambition had prompted our forefathers to 
endure. Our forefathers were endowed with strong 
affections, with mighty arms and great hearts, and they 
tore themselves away from family and friends. They 
spent months in sailing ships and entered this wild coun- 
try. They fished and hunted. They washed and they 
cooked and they worked hard, ofttimes for six or seven 
years before they could save enough money to send for 
wives and other members of their families. The sons 
and the grandsons of these very men may be found 
tramps in our day. Can you tell me why? The reason 
is plain. Prosperity has ruined the common sense of 
the women of our time. Woman’s heartstrings are 
knotty and they are entangled in the darkness of the 
age. Woman has drifted, and her drift has been height- 
ened by the bulk of her purse. Woman transferred her 
marks of foolish affection and her tendency to avarice to 
her child in the cradle, hence this dreadful calendar. 


6o 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 

“ To prove to you woman's fault, we will shift an- 
other picture. Judge Ago has a case in hand. Madam 
Smith being a kleptomaniac, he decides that she should 
simply pay the merchant for all the goods stolen. The 
state makes no charge. It is a disease and Madam 
should receive our sympathy, not our censure. We 
watch the calendar of the same court. A day or two 
later we find : Jack Jones arrested on two charges ; one 
he stole sausage from a butcher, another bread from a 
grocer. Jack Jones sentenced for one year in the peni- 
tentiary at hard labor. 

“Jack Jones was a thief at mother earth’s prison 
gate. Jack Jones was a kleptomaniac by inheritance. 
Jack Jones stole food ; he was poor ; he was branded 
‘ thief’ 

“Madam Smith stole silks, laces and jewelry; she 
was a kleptomaniac ; she was wealthy, and she is not a 
‘thief at mother earth’s prison gate.’ But she is a thief 
before high heaven, and to her dear mother or grand- 
mother she owes her title. 

“The thief is a thief, whether rich or poor. No 
thief can come to live upon this earth if woman will 
swear before high heaven and mother earth that she 
will never invite him to come, and if the women who are 
awake to these facts will set aside gilded honors and go 
forth with their dignified armor and teach illiterate 
mothers — teach the child-man and child-woman — that 
inheritance plays a great part in life ; and that marriage 
was instituted by God as a sacred institution — worthiest 
of God — for thoughtful man, and not for the creating of 
divorce mills, orphan asylums, reform schools, nor the 
multiplying of criminals. If she will go forth and teach 
them that God never meant to make the enforcing of 
law man’s chief resource for food, nor, through civil 


Shifting Life's Pictures. 


6i 

law, force otherwise honest men into the ranks of crim- 
inals, then she shall have entered her true sphere. 

“ Not long ago a man told how he gathered thirty 
of his friends around him near the election booth. Said 
he : ^ Come, boys, let’s pretend we are fighting against 
one another. Let half of you declare within hearing of 

Col. S , as soon as he is near enough to notice what’s 

going on, that you don’t care a d how election goes, 

and our side will pitch in to fight you down. Just see 
if we can’t work some money out of the old chap.’ 

“Yes, they played their part, through their leader, 

and Colonel S was sincere. He presented the boys 

with something that would fill their dinner pail. He 
thought them an illiterate, good-natured lot of fellows, 
whom he soon handled, and he passed on, pleased with 
the result. When he was out of sight they chuckled 
over the brilliant thought of the chap who bled the 
Colonel^ and gave them all a chance for a blow-out — a 
big time, just a little drunk. 

“ We have brilliant women whose hearts have opened 
and who have filled cradle banks, and sent to Cradle 
Beach hundreds and thousands from crowded districts, 
to enjoy fresh air and baths. 

“ These brilliant women should frame a set of rules, 
and ask poor mothers to send forth no more dummies, 
but men who will aid the Savior; who will prepare the 
way for peace. Men whose heartstrings are not tied to 
their pocketbooks, nor their future hopes blasted by 
the comment nor chagrin of fellow-creatures, who, in 
the long run, must be confined to like space, and give 
like account to the Maker.’’ 

Miss Jones became excited during her exhortation, 
and in decisive tones declared that * 


62 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 


Woman shall! Woman must! Woman will unite 
in a movement! Woman will unite as sisters. They 
will erect a simple dwelling, and make of this dwelling a 
center of light. Here woman will offer a room to her 
fellow-woman, giving her a chance to collect her thought ; 
giving her a chance to save herself from drifting to ex- 
treme poverty, and also to protect her property from the 
shrewd, sharp creatures who, to keep up family honors 
and respectability, resort to many ways of taking from 
the aged and helpless their little holdings, because they 
can so conveniently push them into so-called charitable 
institutions. 

“ Woman, during this century, will invite those who 
are giving their life-work for their fellow-creatures, keep- 
ing nothing for self, to higher flights. She will argue 
with the sisterhoods to mingle more with the people, 
to go forth, lifting all men to higher tastes, nobler in- 
ventions ; and, in view of this grand aspect, woman will 
take up a lighter burden. 

“Yes,” continued Miss Jones, “I am assured that 
thinking women will do this. Only think of it, my 
friends, I have visited boarding schools where the children 
of wealthy men and women of our land are being brought 
up, ‘because papa and mamma do not live together, and 
our home has been broken up,’ or because mamma is a 
divorcee, or perhaps mamma was never married. I have 
found side by side with this child, the child of a millionaire 
bankrupt whose wife was unable to keep her usual number 
of attendants, and therefore she found it cheaper to give 
the bringing up of her child to strangers. Many children 
are trained and brought up in this way and are then 
expected to go forth from the school with all the require- 
ments of true womanhood. Our knowledge of their 
incapacity as wives and mothers would not be flattering 


Shifting Life's Pictures. 


63 


to our institutions if their home influence and their make- 
shift friends were exposed. Oui institutions cannot be 
blamed. The fault is not in the institution; it is the 
woman’s fault. 

By a little good management, a little foresight a 
little thought, all this heartrending misery could easily 
be done away with. The longest life is short, the longest 
day has its evening, the stoutest, the most giant-like 
human structure has its weak spells; then, women, why 
not unite as womanly women, and form Thinking clubs, 
Heart to Heart clubs, with no end in view but that of 
lifting all minds to higher flights. Teach your young 
girls and boys to establish Conscience clubs, to fine one 
another when they are treated by untruth, deception, or 
immoral language. Let the fine be a prayer, a penny, 
a cup of cold water, a something which will promote a 
principle for higher aims. Teach them to give out book 
marks to be made by poor children, who must be paid 
for their labor; teach them the pleasures to be found in 
honest, honorable employment, and you will have set the 
true foundation to all human charity.” 

“ Oh see ! Oh see ! ” interrupted the orphaned Daisy 
Miller, “ the whole sky is on fire!” 

The whole household became excited, and the haste 
in which Miss Jones made her exit was unnoticed by all. 
Bertram tore off his skirts and pads, and bust and 
bustle, wig and waterfall, and ascended to the roof with 
the excited crowd, who soon decided all Stevens Center 
was being swept by the flames. Colonel Hasgrove 
ordered out the horses, and himself and his men drove at 
once to the fire scene, leaving Bertram and Tom to look 
after the women and children. Miss Conklin was nearly 
crazed by excitement, and begged to be taken home, for 
she knew that she must lose all, and that her loss must 


64 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 


include much loss to people who were worse off in this 
world’s goods than herself. After a few hours the men 
returned from the fire and announced that the only- 
brother of Colonel Samuel Hasgrove, Robert, and his 
wife were almost suffocated and died shortly after, and 
that Colonel Hasgrove would not be home for business 
for several days, and that the whole town was wiped 
out Miss Conklin’s home was burned to the ground, 
carrying with it all contents. 

“Just as sure as you are alive,” said Mother Has- 
grove, “this is the result of your confounded reform 
movement, this confounded stepping forward, this brother- 
hood, and your repelling vice, and all your grand high- 
falutin’ notions.” 

“Hush, mother,” whispered Margaret; “don’t insult 
our friends.” 

“’Tis so,” said Mother Hasgrove, in a milder tone; 
“ your father thought, in order to help the cause, that he 
must invite the whole town here. Yes, he had his way. 
The people came here,, and it spoiled a pleasant night for 
John the Rags, the fiddler at Gibson’s Landing, and he 
probably slept in some barn with a hot pipe in his pocket. 
Oh my! Oh my!” she continued, “I wonder if the dia- 
mond anchor was saved.” 

While Mother Hasgrove was fretting over the cause 
of the fire, Bertram and Miss Conklin were having a 
confidential chat. 

“Yes,” said Miss Conklin, “ I thought Daisy would 
be more comfortable with Mrs. Griffis. When her aunt 
was dying I promised to do all I could toward sending 

all her belongings to the child in the parish of L , 

England. The next day, I shipped clothes, trunks and 
bank-book to the address she gave me. Over a month 
afterwards, while passing through the home for friendless 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


65 


children, in one of our leading cities, this particular child 
attracted my attention. And here I found Daisy, with her 
old hair trunk, her little leather bag filled with keepsakes, 
and her family history carefully sealed in a packet, and 
which she must read carefully when she reached the age of 
twenty-one.” Then in an agitated tone. Miss Conklin added: 
‘‘ What if these things were not saved ? What if my absence 
from home tonight will render poor Daisy more miserable 
than ever before? What if her history is now lost? Poor 
child, she never received what I sent her to England.” 

Bertram’s sympathies were aroused, and he imme- 
diately made a resolution that he would write to England, 
and, through either the postmaster or some clergyman, 
learn who received the goods and money forwarded for 
this child. He called Daisy to him and questioned her. 

“ Daisy, have you any idea of the number of pieces 
of jewelry you have stowed away in your leather case ? ” 

No, sir.” 

Are any very valuable? ” 

“ Grandma said the diamond anchor was very val- 
uable, because it was made of Parisian diamonds, and 
looked exactly like the real diamond anchor, which was 
made from diamonds which were gathered by our great 
great ancestors, when they were pirates in the southern 
seas.” 

“ Did you ever see that diamond anchor ? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

Who holds the real one ? ” 

‘‘Grandmother said that the real one was carried 
off by her oldest half-brother, who married a rich lady, 
and pawned it — and ” she stammered, as if frightened. 

“ Your memory is not very good, is it Daisy ? ” said 
Bertram, in sympathetic tones, in hopes that he might 
learn more. 


66 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


Mrs. Griffis beckoned Daisy to come to her, as all 
were then leaving for home. 

After a pleasant good-night to the strangers, the 
little group of friends surrounded Miss Conklin, and 
listened attentively to the story of Daisy Miller, her 
aunt and grandmother, and all Miss Conklin knew about 
the anchor which was made of Parisian diamonds, after 
the model of the original one, which contained gems be- 
longing to Rolla, the great barbarian chief; also gems 
belonging to cardinals, emperors and governors, whose 
history graced the pages of history of many centuries. 

“ How wonderful,” said Margaret, adding, after a 
brief pause: ” Miss Conklin, who told you these things?” 

“ Well,” replied Miss Conklin, “ I learned this by 
accident. I sat beside Daisy’s aunt from the time she 
was taken to the hospital until she died. She was per- 
fectly conscious for hours and she knew she could not 
live, and, having neither intimate friend nor relative near, 
she turned to me and told me all. I sympathized with 
her, because I stood very near her at Dead Man’s Curve, 
in New York, at the time she was struck by the car, and 
my name was taken by the policemen, hospital surgeons 
and motorman. I was witness to the false step which 
cost her her life.” 

‘^Was it a forward step?” inquired Mother Has- 
grove in a sarcastic tone. Mother Hasgrove was now 
doubly worried lest the diamond anchor would cause the 
tracing of relationship of the orphaned pauper, Daisy 
Miller, with her husband’s family. 

“ It certainly was,” replied Miss Conklin, who was 
much vexed and could hardly speak. After a few mo- 
ment’s silence, Tom said: 

“ How strange! It seems that whenever a member 
of the human family takes a step forward, another mem- 


Shifting Lifes Pictures, 


67 


ber is called upon to make sacrifice, and it is just so with 
progress, ever and always the genius must suffer, in order 
to wring enough sympathy from hearts to oil his ma- 
chinery.” 

“We have taken a step too many in our case,” said 
Mother Hasgrove, still worrying over the diamond an- 
chor, although she did not know its real history, nor did 
her husband. The diamond anchor was given by Sam- 
uel Hasgrove’ s father to his wife, over seventy years 
ago, to bury in a place of safety. As soon as she be- 
lieved her husband had been murdered, she unearthed 
the box containing his treasures, and, at her death, she 
gave them to Robert, her eldest son. Robert and his 
wife are now dead. “Where is the diamond anchor?” 
seems to give rise to more thought than the dreadful acci- 
dent, followed by so many deaths, at Stevens Center. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Burdened by Wealth. 

Miss Conklin had suffered much loss, but the loss 
of the hair trunk and leather bag belonging to the orphan 
hurt her most. The fire was not only destructive to 
property, but one death followed another, until Colonel 
Hasgrove’s brother’s family was entirely extinct and 
secrets of vital importance were unearthed concerning 
the Hasgroves. 

Colonel Hasgrove is astonished to learn that he can 
count his nieces and nephews by the score, and also that 
his own father deserted his mother, the Indian maid. And 
now his wife and daughter must be told all, because Mar- 
garet has inherited over a million dollars’ worth of stocks 
and bonds, willed to her by her cousin, Amanda Stevens. 
A nephew of the Colonel’s, from Mexico, was executor 
of the estate, and one of Margaret’s friends. Miss Elsie 
Curtis, became his bride. 

Margaret has awakened to her need of an educa- 
tion. She feels embittered toward her parents. She 
blames them for the selfish love. She now questions why 
they kept her cooped up in their mansion, their cheerless 
home, the years she should have been in school, and she 
is worried over the thought that her grandmother was 
of the savage tribe. She is soured by facts. She is bur- 
dened by wealth. She grieves over the promises she 
made her cousin, when she accepted the million and 
the keepsakes. She wonders what became of the dia- 
mond anchor, which her father believes had been removed 
by unscrupulous hands, the night of the fire. Then she 


68 


Burdened by Wealth, 


69 


wondered if the Parisian diamond anchor had any histori- 
cal significance, or was in any way connected with the his- 
tory of the diamond anchor so treasured by her Uncle 
Robert. If so, where are either, or both, now ? Should 
she spend a few thousand dollars from her useless million 
toward finding out where both had gone ? Thoughts, 
thoughts ; nothing but thought filled Margaret’s mind. 
She accepted the printing press belonging to her philan- 
thropic cousin. She became editress of the Stevens 
Center Sunday-school paper, of which she is now sole 
owner, since her cousin’s death. One pleasant afternoon 
she concluded to show Edward Hasgrove,her new-found 
cousin, and Elsie, his bride, that she had some thought to 
offer, and, taking up her pen, she wrote an article for the 
next Sunday’s issue of her paper. Then she read it to 
herself : 

“Think of it, dear readers ! Injustice, born of short- 
sightedness, has filled the world with woe and the heart 
of man with hate. Short-sightedness has been the root 
of much evil. People who know anything at all, know 
that ministers and laymen are now among the enlight- 
eners, and that their recent experiences have taught 
them much. They have been making laws and stirring 
speeches against gambling houses, against lotteries and 
against all things injurious to soul-life, and many of them 
discovered in this stirring that the scattering of individ- 
uals who gamble, is like scattering a bottle of small-pox 
germs ; soon the whole population is liable to be infected 
by vicious instinct. Boys and girls who read these stir- 
ring speeches and court proceedings are tempted to go 
take a peep into the concert hall, and the concert women 
usually have money and are quick to move to fashion- 
able districts and are there protected by law and society, 
and, we are told, spring forth with a doubled audacity and 


70 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


with greater energy to lead innocent victims into their 
gambling halls, which lead men very often to the electric 
chair or the suicide’s grave in the Potters’ Field. Many 
men and women have come to the conclusion that it is 
a foolish thought to suppose that law-makers or law- 
defenders should be expected to stamp out causes which 
lead to crime. Far from it. They are too wise to do 
any such thing. If it were not for crime, the government 
would not find it convenient to grant men their noble 
salaries. And man’s true greatness could never have been 
proved, were it not for the delightful contrast the multi- 
tude saw between the character of man as judge and that 
of the cowering criminals standing ’neath his lofty shadow. 
This being so, then, it is wise for us to use the limitless elas- 
ticity of the imagination and its far-stretched onward view 
and measure the tremendous change waved to the coming 
generations by woman’s own awakening. What is it that 
has happened? A change has come in all social relations. 
The advanced step mankind has taken is a miracle. The 
heavens and the earth have given the kiss of peace. But 
woman advises that we should speak not of these meas- 
urements until the present is rightly understood and 
rightly valued; and her circle is thoroughly rearranged, 
and each cradle in a hallowed stall. Onlookers have con- 
cluded that to many ministers and laymen who are inter- 
ested in the evolutionary process through which society 
is moving, this stirring has seemed but an idle dream, 
this, the closing of the doors of the gambling house, be- 
cause the seizure of machines by municipal authorities 
has done little more than to put the shrewd gamblers’ 
wits to work ; and the otherwise rusty schemer bright- 
ens up, and in a short time he finds a cellar in the rear 
of one of our palatial residences thrown open to him as 
a store-house for his paraphernalia, and this friend and 


Burdened by Wealth. 


71 


wealthy lord may have, for all we know, turned duplicate 
turnkey ; and instead of vice remaining in its classified 
proportions, it is promiscuously scattered throughout the 
city, and as every individual is setting an example for 
another who follows, we should take warning. We 
should ever try to build our castles out of mental tim- 
bers culled from the best known and most worthy fields, 
and shape our landscape after a fashion designed by the 
Great Architect. 

“ Study the people you read about in this Sunday’s 
issue. They hunger and thirst after knowledge; they 
have personally entered the homes of many ; they have 
studied environment, and have told us that the problem 
of life can only be analyzed by the old rule, ‘ train the 
hand that rocks the cradle,’ if the next generation will 
serve God by obeying the word.” 

Margaret flung down her pen. “ There,” she said, 
I have done my best. I wonder if anyone will ponder 
over it ? ” 


CHAPTER VIL 


QUESTIONABLE DECISIONS. 

Margaret awakened to the fact that through the 
death of her cousin Amanda she was the happy pos- 
sessor of a million dollars’ worth of property, besides 
the valuable keepsakes which she would not part with 
for another million. Her wealth was rapidly becoming 
a burden to her mind, and she was obliged to study very 
hard to find reasonable means for outlay. The advice of 
her parents was of little value to her. 

As she knew little about the world, she concluded 
that perhaps she could learn something by studying the 
American girl in fiction, and, in that way, she might 
choose an ideal for herself, whose life she might imitate. 

One afternoon while lounging in the conservatory 
with a novel in her hand, her thoughts followed the 
lady of whom she had been reading, until her mind 
became completely dazed. For a moment she seemed 
to shiver with intense agitation, then she arose and said 
aloud : “Have I suddenly became a fool? Am I indeed 
foolish?” Speaking to herself, she replied: “Yes, Mar- 
garet, you have been growing foolish. Well, then, grow 
wise and enjoy what you have,” said her innerself, still 
conversing with her other self. “ I shall grow wise ; I 
will not follow Amanda Hasgrove’s footsteps. No more 
problems for me. 

“ I feel more like dancing an Indian war dance than 
writing for a Sunday school paper.” Then, flinging 
down her book, she said, “ I am not going to write ; my 
old age shall not be spent like many of these spinster 


72 


Questionable Decisions, 


73 


writers or those mystic creatures who have gone to their 
land of promise. Instead, I will have gowns with decol- 
lete bodices, and I shall cater to every whim and fashion. 

I am going to learn how the great people do. I shall 
rebuild this old house; have a beautiful Moorish room; 
also an aquarium next to the dining-room. I shall have 
mirrored walls; a plate-glass centerpiece for the table; 
and according as I improve in knowledge, and find out 
the demands of the social set, I will soar out as a society 
woman and have executed everywhere my own ideas ; I 
shall spend time and money on flowers; pay ^6.00 a 
pound for my tea; employ a hair-dresser, manicure artist 
and every other attendant whom I can find to contribute 
to my personal appearance. I have been given my 
daily bread, and now my soul seeks worldly pleasures.” 
Her conscience whispers, as a church member, this plan 
is not very Christian-like, and wishing to stifle its 
promptings, she said aloud : 

“ Hush, thou innerself. I shall not be thwarted in 
this my plan. There is no greater evil than the lack of 
harmony in thought. Be silent, thou, my conscience, 
for I have concluded that I will enjoy all of the beauty 
and pleasures to be found in life. Of pleasure’s cup I will 
drink to the dregs, because closely nestled behind the 
portals of my heart has been in hiding the seed of 
worldliness, which must now become a full-grown work- 
ing ideal of self interest. What I have received from 
Amanda’s estate has made me heir to over a million. 
What care I now for her foolish hopes, her fears, her 
homes for the helpless, or her tears for the poor. I 
have money now and I will not kill myself, as she did, 
thinking about others. I will not be a slave to the prob- 
lems of life. My reform shall be self-improvement, self- 
government and self-spending. The present order of 


74 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


things are good enough for me ; for I, Margaret Has- 
grove, can wink at the poverty of the masses and I need 
not unfold my life except for my own pleasure. I have 
nothing to do but eat, drink and be merry. I have no 
fear, because Jesus saved all by his death. I will never 
get what doctors call Americanitis for want of being good 
to myself I shall enjoy tired nature’s sweet restorer, 
and I will never throw my food out of the windows to 
the dogs, because I shall have all the good things my- 
self I will never contract my throat, nor use superfluous 
tension while reading, nor my spine for listening, nor 
allow my speaker to draw on my facial muscles. I shall 
overthrow all self-consciousness, and endeavor to free 
myself from the necessary fatigue of the so-called Amer- 
ican voice, in order that I will never become a target to 
be hit during my travels while abroad. I will not con- 
tradict nature in my walking, ever employing all the 
principles underlying sweet repose, and I will never in- 
crease suffering by having sympathy for my friends, 
building up for myself strong magnetism, and put my 
religion to a wholesome use. No sham emotions for me. 

“ If I find a friend in the swamp, I will never plunge 
in with her. I will rather throw her a rope and let her 
help herself, for the exercise must do her good, and I will 
always keep enough motive power ahead to allow the 
force power of energy to so escape without shaking me out 
of my senses, and I will never look down because it 
might cause me to find some one there whom I would 
have to pick up. I will survey all the disturbances of 
life calmly, the deepest grief as well as the greatest joy. 
I will shape my life so as to live with wisdom for my 
own happiness. I shall be sincere to my own dear self, 
and it is no false purpose. My picture is as clear of 
what my efforts shall be and as distinct in my mind as it 


Questionable Decisions, 


75 


is in the calendar of fore-ordination. I shall follow out 
my conclusions, never minding how severely I shall be 
tempted to do otherwise. This must be my rule of life, 
and it embodies the wisdom of ages. My motto shall 
ever be, ‘ Be very good to your own dear self, Margaret’ ” 
Margaret’s dreaming was then interrupted by her 
father, who entered with a letter. Tearing it open she 
reads : 

Dear Margaret : — You will be surprised to hear that Elsie 
sent me all the diaries and letters belonging to Mrs. Stevens, which 
were intended for the book for the benefit of the “Working 
Woman’s Retreat.” I scarcely know what I shall do about 
using them. As you are editress of the Gazette, perhaps your 
suggestion would do more than hours of thought from me. Can 
you not think of a plan? It seems too bad that some member of 
her family, to whom her property was given, does not respect her 
wishes and continue with the work she had begun. With a little 
help from well-wishers, I would willingly go ahead as a projector of 
the work myself. The erecting of such an institution four or five 
miles outside the city limits should be executed with pleasure by the 
working women of every city throughout the union. The Working 
Woman’s Retreat should be governed by a board of directors 
chosen by votes of working women, and having inspecting com- 
mittees, instructors paid to give lectures to the numerous represen- 
tatives of the trades and the improvement and social societies whose 
members happened to need a place to stop for rest. A neat and 
well-provided farm house in the country, where woman could call 
home without the air of almsgiving or charity, would be a character 
builder, besides a great advantage to many a woman in need of a 
home; it would save many from drifting on unsafe waters, and a 
sisterhood would rise that would exert a great influence for a 
common good. This should have nothing about it that would savor 
of the denominational worship of one belief more than another, 
under any circumstances. Protestant and Catholic alike should 
share the benefits of the comforts of home on very much the same 
principles that we share rooms in a hotel or boarding-house. The 
minister, the priest, the banker and the lawyer should each hold a 
place on the board of directors and among the instructors on moral 
and scientific principles. This home should be a reality and not a 
mere theory held in the letters of an unfinished volume. Knowing 


76 While Hopes Were Kindling. 

that you, more than any other member of Mrs. Stevens’ family, 
have reason to understand her wishes in this matter, I cannot help 
but urge that you enter the spirit of the work and aid me in securing 
an interest in the work from among the women and girls of the land. 
Hoping that you will look with favor upon the project, I am anxiously 
awaiting your reply. 

Yours sincerely, 

MARY BENNETT. 

When Margaret had finished reading the letter, her 
father said : “ Daughter you are in a position to aid this 
young woman in carrying out the plans your cousin had 
in mind, and there is no good reason why you should 
not do so ; you may search this old world from the north 
pole to the south pole, and you will then be as far from 
true happiness as when you began if you lack the mag- 
nitude of spirit which unfolds itself in sympathy for a 
suffering sister. In this, our mountain home, we were 
happy and contented until the misfortunes of others cast 
it to our lot to be encumbered by wealth which we were 
more happy without. It becomes our duty to use this 
wealth wisely. There are many working women through- 
out the United States who may be aided by you to 
higher and more hopeful positions, whose good will and 
grateful glances would become an inspiring force for no 
end of benevolent activity. You must seek to do right 
with what has been given to you. It is at best but a 
loan from the Controller of all law.” 

“Father,” replied Margaret, “all things are but a 
loan from the Lord, and I cannot understand why it is 
that when the Lord was lending. He gave so little to 
some people. I have all I want now, and if he wanted 
others to have as much as I have, he could, by one 
thought, send it to them. I am going to be good to my 
own dear self, and let others do likewise, and they may 
get more from the Lord some day.” 


Questionable Decisions, 


77 


Well,” said her father, in a tone which expressed 
a hopeless fear for his daughter’s future career, “ I never 
expected that of you, our child, in whom we hoped for 
so great an interest in the humanizing of the Red Man 
and the building up of true womanhood. Hear me but 
for another moment, before you leave the room. Don’t 
look for happiness in the gay throng. It may be there 
for some, but not for you, dear. Your early environ- 
ment is indelibly impressed on memory’s pages. Add 
what pictures you may, the photographs of youth are 
more lasting than those added in middle age. Daugh- 
ter, do not let it remain for history to record it against 
you that wealth turned your brain, and created for you 
a heartless, selfish disposition, that would cause an up- 
rising against you of those who have loved and admired 
you since you came into the world.” 

“ Father, it remains with me to enjoy life, and I beg 
of you to do no more sermonizing. Amanda had plenty 
of time to place her money and establish societies for the 
humanizing of the savage, if she was not so anxious to 
know too much about everybody and everything before 
she could find it in her heart to open her purse and part 
with a dime. I will not follow in her footsteps. I shall 
be good only to myself, and perhaps when you shall 
have read my record on the day of judgment, you will 
find as much benevolence recorded after my name as after 
names of people who are forever talking about the good 
they are doing and have done. I shall be no hypocrite, 
whatever else I may become ; so, father, dear, you must 
not consider this an imprudent decision. Every woman 
in this broad land should adopt my plan and study out 
the safest and best way by which she can be very good 
to herself, because God seldom sends much to people 
they do not have to work very hard to obtain. And, if the 


78 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


women are wise, they will not look to any one for a 
place of shelter in their old age. They will unite of 
themselves and support homes which will not make it a 
compliment to have taken them in. They will have 
homes so governed that they cannot be refused respect- 
ful admittance. Homes that will hold within its doors 
no women who will infer that such as you or you would 
be in the poorhouse if it were not that you were taken in 
here. The poorhouse is a reflection, and so are charit- 
able institutions. Institutions governed by associates for 
the protection and instruction and elevating of human 
society, if composed of a religious body of men and 
women, are a blessing ; but that these men and women 
should be burdened with the care of forced and thought- 
less victims of poverty is something which lies far beyond 
my sense of reasoning.” 

Colonel Hasgrove found it useless to argue with his 
daughter. He left the room, and, going directly to the 
mills, he met the driver of the flour and feed wagon, who 
handed him a carefully sealed envelope, addressed to 
Miss Margaret Hasgrove, from Nettie Pardow, clerk at 
Smith’s grocery. Burr Hollow. An hour later, when 
Colonel Hasgrove returned to the house, he found his 
daughter in somewhat better mood. Handing her the 
letter, as usual, he waited to hear her read the contents. 

Dear Margaret: — Having had the honor of attending 
school with you when Mr. Patterson taught at the Four Corners, 
and hoping that you have not forgotten me, I now take the liberty 
to ask a favor in behalf of the working girls. You have wealth. 
We need reasonable pay, in order to be comfortably clothed and 
fed. Can you not think of a way out of the difficulty for us ? We 
are gifted with the love of right, the love of justice, the love of 
home ; but there is an undercurrent which is rapidly undermining 
this love. Can you not help us to check its speedy driftings? We 
do not ask the wealthy to show us the artistic creations of man. 


Questionable Decisions, 


79 


We know our place too well for that. God meant that we should 
inherit the earth. We enjoy this inheritance. We love the grass 
that ripples at our feet; we enjoy the beauties of the brush and 
bramble, the majestic sunbeams, and also the hallowed golden and 
fiery shadows of the welcomed sunset ; but according to our pres- 
ent outlook we fear to peep beyond, we tremble for tomorrow. 
We falteringly turn our steps toward home, only to find we have 
none. We are happy in our humble settings. We want no adorn- 
ment, but we want a place to sleep, a place to eat, a place to work, 
while passing through this life. Our contact with the hundreds we 
meet during the day gives us all the clubs and society we need. 
We are worried about what we shall do when we are unable to 
tread this weary round each day. One year’s ill health or draw- 
back would place every one of us in the paupers’ list. 

Please suggest some measure by which we may be able to 
kindle and fan hope to an illuminating flame. 

Margaret flung the letter upon the table. “ More of 
the burdens invited by our wealth,” said she, in a bitter 
tone. 

“ Daughter,” said Colonel Hasgrove, in a sympathetic 
but firm tone, “if I were you I would spend my energies in 
seeking aid for the uplifting of the working women, and I 
would forget the theories which now disturb you in 
regard to the diamond anchor problem. If Bertram 
wishes to ascertain the full accounts of the case, both at 
this and the other side of the Atlantic, let him do so.” 

“ But, father,” interrupted Margaret, “I must have the 
diamond anchor. I have my heart set on having it, and 
I have severed my thought from philanthropic work 
forever; so, now, there is no use your arguing more. I 
will not help the working woman, nor the woman who 
doesn’t work.” 

“Child, down in the depth of your nature lies a 
hidden spring for good, a gracious, benignant power, 
waiting the order to become a noble working ideal, a 
charm for the enlarging of your soul life. To a great 


8o 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


extent, your mother and myself have caused a backward 
step in the development of that life, in that thought ; we 
so loved you, that our selfishness has all but stififled the 
love of creatures hiding in your breast. We offered the 
gestures, we beckoned you aside, we are to blame for this 
heartrending, this brain-turning impulse which has turned 
you against all good. Love has been quenched, exhor- 
tations and illustrations, illuminating evils, have fallen 
upon your ears so repeatedly that you, our pride, our joy, 
our beloved daughter — oh, you have almost become a 
mark of our iniquities. Oh, Margaret, I beg of you to 
pray God to give you grace to return to your former 
humility, sympathy and grace. I cannot endure the 
restless fury, and the uneasy rolling of your eyes. This 
will never do child, it will never do.” 

“Father, invite your friends here. Invite the working 
girls and working women as often as you wish, and to 
please mother and you I will do my part toward enter- 
taining them, but my plans shall not be overthrown. I 
have wealth. Therefore, I shall have all the pleasures 
the world holds in store, and the diamond anchor I shall 
have and the problematical history connected with every 
stone in the setting I shall solve. I am determined. 
You may help the helpless, plan homes for the homeless, 
but I shall be a woman of fashion. So you may as 
well not worry for me, for I am able to take care of my- 
self” 

At this instant one of the men who drove a lumber 
wagon handed in another letter, which Margaret reads ; 

Rose Hill, N. Y., Feb. 19, 1901. 
To Miss Margaret Hasgrove: 

Dear Margaret — I was glad to hear that you fell heir to the 
greater portion of Amanda’s estate, because I know your religious 
training will prompt you to use that wealth in behalf of your suffer- 


Questionable Decisions, 


8i 


ing sisters. I am now crippled with rheumatism so I cannot work. 

1 am insured in a benevolent association for one thousand dollars, 
and I own four acres of ground, worth one hundred dollars an 
acre, and this little house in which I live; the taxes have not been 
paid in two years. 

I was notified by a sister of the association yesterday that I 
had been suspended at their last meeting on account of not having 
paid my dues, fifty cents, for two succeeding quarters. My very 
heart is broken over the collapse affairs have taken. Can you not 
help me ? I went to seventeen members of the Christian Benevo- 
lent Association, asking them to lend me something, or let me sign 
over my insurance to them, to save me from entire suspension, 
and help me to become reinstated ; I might have asked the favor 
of a stone, and have expected to make as favorable an impression, 
for all the good it did me to ask. I am spending my fifty-sixth 
year, and I am liable to live for many years. 

To become an object of charity, and to be still the owner of 
property, does not seem to me a very dignified position, but it 
appears that that is what is before me. Can you not cause men 
and women, who have educated hearts, to -unite in the projecting 
and erecting of a building which may be used by people whom cir- 
cumstances forced into such a helpless condition as I find myself 
today. If I could save what I have from falling into unscrupulous 
hands I would have enough to take care of me while I live. My 
Christian neighbors donate large sums in alms-giving and charity, 
but they know that my pride would forbid my publishing in any 
charitable report that they had loaned me ten or fifteen dollars; 
therefore, I am left to suffer here alone. I would gladly give all I 
possess to a board of directors to sell and turn the proceeds to the 
paying for rent of one room in a home for women in which I could 
be protected and surrounded by kindness for the rest of my life. 
Where I could have a place to sleep and eat and devote the rest of 
my life preparing to enter the next life. Please plan a way out of 
my troubles for me. Yours sincerely, 

Jane Hope. 

The next evening a number of young people came 
to take tea and spend a few hours with Margaret, who 
did her part towards entertaining the “ reformers,” as she 
called them. Mary Bennett was among the guests and 
was watching every opportunity to forward the cause 


82 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


in favor of a home for women according to plans sug- 
gested by Margaret’s cousin, Amanda Stevens. 

“ Come, we must change the subject of reform,” said 
Margaret, whose intolerance was very evident; “come 
and listen to an old soldier’s speech before members 
of the Grand Army of the Republic. Amanda’s gramo- 
phone has been the source of much amusement to us.” 
She placed the horn in position, arranged the spring over 
the record, and, to the amazement of the girls, the in- 
strument poured forth : 

“ Ladies and gentlemin and all, children and all: — 
Ladies and gintlemin, I am glad to come befor ye tonight 
and it brings me back to the days whin we were boys 
and girls together. I want to say it brings me back to 
the time whin we had the battle of Bunker Hill. When 
I sthood and shooted the bullets out of my gun as fasht 
as I could pit them in it. H-u-r-r-r-r-a-h ! I remember 
well whin Gineral Grant rushed up. ‘Sthop the battle,’ says 
he. ' Is Mr. O’Sullivan here ? ’ says he. ‘ Here I am, 
says I. ‘Then let the fight go on,’ says the gineral.’ 
H-u-r-r-r-r-a-h ! I remember well whin I was shooten 
the rebels in proper shape, and whin on Lookout Mountain 
Gineral Sheridan raised up; says he when he saw the pile 
of rebels I had piled up in front of me that I had shooted 
with me gun : ‘ Mr. O’Sullivan, lay down your gun; you 
have shooted enough Spanyards for one day.’ H-u-r-r- 
r-r-a-h ! H-u-r-r-r-r-a-h ! I remimber well whin the bul- 
lets were cutting the buttons off me coat, and even thin 
I didn’t run, but, ladies and gentlemin, whin I did run, I 
did run like a son-of-a-gun. H-u-r-r-r-r-a-h ! ” 

Mary Bennett listened for some time; then she asked 
Margaret all about the records, and was surprised to learn 
Mrs. Stevens had purchased all the records, but having 
faith in the power of the word, no records left their 


Questionable Decisions. 


83 


cases except those which dealt with the uplifting of 
thought — the very records which were growing more 
and more foreign to Margaret each day. 

The girls begged of Margaret to arouse herself 
anew and become interested in their plans. After many 
arguments for and against the cause, Margaret, in order 
to change the subject, called on the gramophone for an 
exhortation which issued forth in clear distinct tones, 
and held the interest of all : 

“ Thou shalt not kill, is a command older than Christ- 
ianity itself, but it is a commandment never regularly 
heeded, except when the victim craves death by way 
of a release from physical suffering. Thousands and 
tens of thousands of our fathers, brothers and sons are 
employed and receive good wages, while engaged in no 
other work than that ‘ I am doing all in my power to heed 
man’s greedy, thirsty command, to kill my brother.’ 
Yes, dear friends, our land is now filled to overflowing 
with men and women who are guilty of murder before 
high heaven. 

“ Draw a picture of a woman seated in her cottage 
along a country road ; her son and husband work in the 
powder mill ; they earn their bread by the sweat of their 
brow while making powder — for what use ? To be em- 
ployed in the destruction of fellow-men. Another 
man, in the gun-shop, works with great enthusiasm over 
his particular kind of make of rifle, and for what purpose 
is this instrument manufactured ? For the destruction 
of fellow-men. A man in the coal mine is digging 
out coal to create heat to reduce pig-iron to a more 
refined state, and for what purpose? In the end, for 
the destruction of his fellow-men. The superintendent 
of the great steel and iron works and his wife are now 
rejoicing over their prosperity. But since the war be- 


84 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


gan, they forget to add, this came to us because we 
were aids in the destruction of our fellow-men. 

“ Two million glass eyes are manufactured every 
year in Germany and Switzerland to rest in the sockets 
where the real ones should be. Because men employed 
in steel, iron and powder works are so frequently 
blinded by splinters of steel or other destructive issues 
which cause blindness while laboring in the manufactur- 
ing of man-killing instruments. Are these men not in 
positions which make them accessory to crime? War 
is crime. War could not be declared by any ruler, 
whether king, queen or president, if the blindness of the 
people had not contributed toward his or her declaration. 
Ever and always war became what some have called a 
scientific step toward progress and civilization. Let us 
question : What is war ? War is now and was ever 
a developing principle in artistic creation, but of no 
value to heart education, which must be the acknowl- 
edged step in the right kind of civilization. War has 
developed the art of manufacture, the art of building, 
the art of scheming, the art of brutality, and that in its 
highest form, emblazoned by shining sword and gilded 
shields. 

“ Have you considered that woman has not been called 
upon to forfeit her sense of seeing, in order to contribute 
sons for the powder mill, nor the battle field ; and yet 
we may say woman has suffered blindness through her 
multitudinous duties created by art, while looking after 
man’s wants. One great trouble with the world is that 
few women ever find themselves accessory to any crime. 
But women, as a whole, are guilty for the brutal strides 
men have taken. Men cannot shake off woman’s influ- 
ence, thinking women are leading men. Observe women’s 
multitudinous duties in looking after men and affairs ; 


Questionable Decisions. 


85 


and enter the spirit of the select few, whose constant 
mental occupation feed visionary measurements of su- 
preme heights ; think of the encouragement woman be- 
comes to great thinkers ; her food for thought becomes 
a help which is to the world incalculable. But, my dear 
friends, this woman was never fascinated by marble halls, 
by mirrored walls, tapesteries, nor gilded banners. The 
folly of art became repulsive to her when she considered 
the moulding and shaping of men’s hearts and the minds 
which were neglected for this artistic adornment. This 
woman believed that living pictures off the theatrical 
stage should adorn the home of every man and woman 
of wealth. Living pictures filled with soul honor should 
be hired to stand or pose on the pedestal where the chis- 
eled bit of marble now rests. Art of the right sort, is the 
training of the people to shape hearts and minds, and the 
uplifting of human souls, and the chiseling of human be- 
ings, and not marble nor stone, to the neglect of soul life. 

“Individuality, personality and apprenticeship are 
three things which should play a part in every life, as it 
enters the first personal consciousness of right or wrong. 
Everything that feeds with folly becomes injurious to 
the visionary sense, and should, therefore, call for dis- 
placement. Woman, thinking woman, must bring relief 
to the portion of the human family now suffering. She 
must do this through her promptness and directions, and 
through her remissions and her suspensions. 

“ Thousands have often been guilty of a fault which 
rested on the shoulders of one single individual. 

“ Consider the millions multiplying in greater faults, 
which may be doomed to rest on your shoulders ; when, 
if by habit of thought, you omit doing what your con- 
science tells you you are capable of doing toward elimin- 
ating the crimes crowding round the heart’s doorway. 


86 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


'‘Will the whist players of today invite to the earth 
an age of gamblers?” Margaret snapped the key at 
this instant, and Mary said : 

“ Oh, girls, do help me. Let us erect a house, where 
women who are not paupers may have a home ; where 
they can live and pay their way without being obliged 
to pay so much over and above the cost of material as to 
enable the house to earn for itself costly marble halls 
and tapestry draperies — a neat, humble dwelling for 
women who have none.” 

Without waiting a word in reply, Margaret led the 
way to the tea table, where with her parents they dis- 
cussed the questions of the day. 

Colonel Hasgrove, whose multiplying fears for his 
daughter were most harrowing, hoping to offer a sugges- 
tion for a thought, said : “ Y oung ladies, you are destined 
to begin a life work where we are about to stop. There 
are many weaklings of fashion whose wealth gives them 
power, who, finding the government a profitable invest- 
ment, they seek to control it. It is your duty to make an 
especial study of the state law and the laws governing both 
person and property in this and other countries. Dis- 
tance no longer counts ; therefore, you must endeavor to 
acquaint yourselves with all facts connected with the his- 
tory of all nations. You must endeavor to measure the 
noble deeds of men and women who were angels of toil, 
conduct and thought; of men and women who help to fill 
the great fountain of truth to overflowing. Watch your 
kindling hopes; let no discouragement nor disappoint- 
ment check your right to do what is in you, as an indi- 
vidual, to do when your conscience speaks for right- 
Be patient, and when the judges of your time will pass 
unjust sentence on your conception, dare to face the 
world again with braver heart. Be not driven back. 


Questionable Decisions. 


87 


Remember always that, however the body may appear, 
the soul is all your own ; that no king or queen can fit 
it in its niche in the future sphere” 

For a few moments there was complete silence, and 
Mary, half regretful on account of having developed such 
an unbounded sympathy for those whom she feared in the 
end she would be powerless to help, said within herself : 

“ Oh, magnitude of mind ! wrapt in balmy mist with winged steed, 
Why dost thou on useless errands speed? 

Dost thou not know that the gray-haired sage of noble deed, 

Nor giant of mighty bone, with cause however bold. 

Hath ne’er escaped the yawning grave through deed nor gold?” 

Her dreaming was soon interrupted by Margaret, 
whose Methodist conscience at the same moment whis- 
pered, as she once read, ^^That in a perfect world we 
should never behold successful fraud and knavery flaunt- 
ing in fine robes and faring well every day; or, on the 
other hand, virtue in poverty and rags, and honest worth 
despised and down-trodden,” and might she not do a little 
toward helping Mary in this movement. 

Although in her heart she cherished this thought, 
she said : “You may be able to build an ideal home for 
women according to your plan, but I doubt it, and as for 
my part, it is useless to hope to enlist my sympathies for 
either the aged or the helpless at any age, for I am on 
the brink of unbelief. It was only today, while I was at 
the Library, that I came across an old number of a 
Roman Catholic paper containing a miraculous story of 
the Virgin. Of course it was only a work of fiction, 
written by a Protestant, who never believed for even a 
moment in the Virgin’s powers; but it was intended as 
reading for faithful believers in her intercession. Since I 
have learned these things, my belief has changed. Our 


88 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


Methodist Discipline may have been written by a Roman- 
ist, and, for all we know, Jews may be seated in the 
seats of Baptists ; and a half-caste may sit in the throne 
of royalty, and if our politics are not soon purified, 
we shall ring on and on until we become an aristocracy 
in the hands of foreign courts. If you would harken to 
my advice, you would have nothing at all to do with 
either aged nor helpless. You will close your eyes to 
suffering until you have sorrows of your own. You are 
not strong enough to stand the awe of the world’s opin- 
ions and judgments.” 

“I care naught for the world’s opinions and judg- 
ments,” replied Mary ; ” its slights, its contempt, its ill- 
usage. I am not ashamed of fulfilling my duty, nor of 
fully acknowledging the many struggles my conscience 
had to combat until this fear of prejudice was wiped 
away. Then I concluded to lay aside opinion and to 
keep in mind one great truth, which expels all fear. 
Why should I think of any creature as being greater 
in the sight of God than myself? Why should I con- 
sider another man’s thought greater than mine; his 
judgment any more to be relied upon than my own, 
when you consider that we are all depending on bor- 
rowed analysis for wordly truth. Ideas, in fact, have 
come to us through men in all ages, who picked up a 
thought somewhere and added more and more to it. 
It was in this way that a set of human laws were 
developed for man by man. I have as good a right to 
have a house built according to my plan as the great 
Solomon had to build his temple in his time. McKinley 
had no greater right to sign the declaration of war than 
I have of declaring that the women of our country stand 
in need of helping hands and comfortable homes, in 
order to check the drift to poverty in their old age. 


Questionable Decisions. 


89 


When the fathers of many of the best clubs in the coun- 
try came together, enthusiastic, though limited in means, 
they were filled with unbounded sympathy and energy. 
They met every difficulty, until they became strong and 
powerful organizations. Then they enjoyed suppers, 
over which they held many a long talk, with truly 
prophetic wisdom, of the days when they might be 
greater in numbers, in influence and fame ; the days which 
they saw in the future and which they lived, to enjoy. 
Why should we not hope? We have come together to 
discuss something of graver importance than the organ- 
izing of a club, or the discussing of the question of war 
or state. 

“ We have learned that woman is one of the noblest 
beings in creation, and we have come together this 
evening to try to unite as willing workers toward the 
erecting of a building as a home for the weaker and the 
last days of that dear woman's earthly career, whom we 
may find deprived of the love of family and friends ; and 
also for those who are depending on the hospitality of 
the landlord or the boarding mistress until their means 
are liable to fall into unscrupulous hands. We have 
come together, as willing workers, to choose six honest, 
upright, educated men from the several professions, to 
act as an advisory board. We need the sympathy of the 
banker, where we must deposit the money which we are 
already assured of ; we need the sympathy of the noble 
lawyer, whose educated heart will prompt him, as an act 
of benevolence, to hear the poor woman’s story, and 
hunt down the vagabond who has taken advantage of 
her illiteracy and confiscated her property ; we need the 
good will of the druggist and the noble services of the 
physician of body, whose helpful hints will prepare the 
way for the servants of the Divine Master, whose soul- 


90 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 


filling words will sound the warning and prepare the 
way for that dear soul to enter eternal glory.” 

“ Be honest, Mary ; do you ever hope to see such a 
house erected?” questioned Margaret, adding, ‘‘I am so 
interested in the solving of the problem of the diamond 
mystery and Daisy Miller’s history, I have no time for 
aged or helpless, nor anything else.” 

“ I certainly believe that house will be erected 
before you have solved your diamond problem,” replied 
Mary, adding, “ I have learned that it will require about 
seventy-one dollars to pay for the excavating of fourteen 
hundred and twenty-two feet of dirt for the cellar ofa build- 
ing one hundred and sixty feet long and forty feet wide. 
That fifty-four cords of stone may be laid at an expense 
of twelve dollars a cord, making an expense of six hun- 
dred and forty-eight dollars for the foundation and laying 
thereof. The cellar windows and their casings, at two 
dollars each, may be placed for twenty-four dollars. 
Next comes the brick for the walls, numbering eight 
hundred and five thousand. I have always heard it said 
that a brick cost ten cents, but we shall be most happy 
to use bricks at a penny apiece.” 

This explanation attracted the attention of all, who 
listened attentively as she added : “ Think of it, my friends, 
you who are candy-eaters, soda-water drinkers, or even 
gum-chewers ! How soon would the money you spend 
for these unnecessary luxuries erect a comfortable house 
for the helpless and aged who are now obliged to spend 
their last days in the most unwholesome places?” 

Mary turned toward the others in the party, and, with 
a gesture, continued: “ Why not lay aside that amount of 
money you were about to spend for that box of Huylers, 
that unnecessary bicycle pin, that little silver heart you are 
about to hang on your bracelet, or any one of the little 
trinkets which are unnecessary to your soul’s adornment ? 


Questionable Decisions. 


91 


“If you do in secret any of these things you are not 
violating the opinion of the popular mind of today. You 
will not be disrobed of the dress of rationality, nor over- 
powdered by mock sympathy, intensified by excitement 
which you cannot get away from. People will not be 
able to undo for you what you have done, nor overthrow 
your good works. Do not become the mouth-piece of 
the unreasoning, who are ever ready to assure you that 
an appeal for bricks and mortar is ‘worse than useless,’ 
or that there are homes enough for the aged of our time- 
Let us unite as if but one voice and ask our sisters in 
every city to make a study of our theories, and make a 
note of the surroundings of their aged poor, aged sick, 
and aged homeless, whether man or woman, and ask 
them, ‘ to do unto the aged now, as they may hope to 
be done by,’ some fifty or sixty years from now, when 
they are spending their declining years. If they awaken 
to the reasonableness of our arguments, they will also 
willingly meet in little bands of willing workers, and be- 
come as wonder workers in a movement toward the 
establishing of a house which will not savor of alms giv- 
ing, nor deign to accept anything which does not come 
to it through the merits of labor. To pay for the stone 
and excavating, we need seven hundred and twenty dol- 
lars, which we could pay for by selling as many copies of 
reading matter, upon which we might have a profit of 
ten cents each. Can we not find seventy young women 
who are willing to do this for us? Supposing, then, 
that we have our cellar dug, and our foundation laid, let 
the developing patriotism which is our boast assume a 
magnificent proportion, and let us send our order to 
some silk works for eight hundred and five thousand 
American flags, bearing the name of our pioneer moral 
and political reformers, which shall be stamped on the 


92 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 


stars and stripes as a mark of the willing workers’ grati- 
tude for the freedom they have won for us. By selling 
the nation’s flag at a profit of one cent on each flag, we 
should be able to purchase the bricks we need, besides 
promoting the spirit of patriotism. But I shall not feel 
it my duty to allow sentiment to suppress the right of 
making a reasonable profit on the sale of flags, we may 
reasonably charge, at least, as much as would give us a 
margin of two and a half cents each. This would enable 
us to not only purchase our brick, but we might add a 
thousand dollars to the price of the roofing material. 
Now we have our one thousand feet of hemlock to pur- 
chase at sixteen dollars a thousand, and one hundred and 
forty-four windows at an expense of ten dollars each, 
making three thousand and forty dollars for hemlock, 
windows and frame work. We can easily give the peo- 
ple their money’s worth for this needed sum by paying a 
noted and popular young orator to give a series of lec- 
tures for us. We will remember how enthusiastically the 
people received Dr. Crank not so long ago, and the pro- 
ceeds of the ticket sale for one lecture amounted to 
eleven hundred dollars. 

Next comes the fluing and the mill work, which was 
the most troublesome to study out. But thanks to a 
gentleman who knew something about the work, I have 
learned that the expense will be two thousand seven 
hundred and twenty-seven dollars. Then we may add 
one hundred and forty doors at ten dollars each. This 
money we shall earn by holding a night school forty 
evenings, at which we shall be instructed on the history 
of man from the beginning of the world till today ; the 
history of our sisters who have been purchased by the 
blood of the heros of our late war, and also on the best 
and surest means of spreading sentiments of brotherly 


Questionable Decisions. 


93 


love. We will charge two hundred dollars for each 
schollar, as his or her scholarship fee, and, I dare say, 
we shall have at least sixty persons who will attend. 

The mill work, fluing and doors are a small item of 
expense compared to the carpenter, brick and mason 
labor and plumbing; also lath and plaster which has 
been estimated at an expense of four thousand three 
hundred dollars, making a total expense of ten thousand 
and ten dollars. This sum I have been offered for my 
diary by a New England publishing company. Then 
we need four sets of back stairs at fifty dollars each 
and four sets of stairs for the front of the house at 
one hundred dollars each; this money we can realize 
from a manuscript which I have now on hand, “ Climb- 
ing Up the Golden Stair!' 

“ It is a good subject, and may blessing attend the 
man who publishes it,” interrupted Mother Hasgrove, 
who entered the room at that moment. 

“ Well, Mary,” interrupted Margaret, “ you have 
adopted some of the blarney, which does not become 
you quite as much as it did Kate MacDonald. Are 
there many more parts to the building you are telling us 
about?” 

“There are no more parts to be constructed,” replied 
Mary, “ but there is a bill for glass amounting to five 
hundred dollars. Then we need a thousand dollars for 
decorating and gas fixtures ; a thousand dollars for an 
elevator; four hundred dollars for a dumb-waiter and 
three hundred for mantels; a thousand dollars for pol- 
ishing the floors ; and last, though not least, furnaces and 
hardware, seventeen hundred dollars.” 

“I think it is a heap of nonsense,” said Margaret; 
“ the idea of spending so much time and thought on un- 
deserving people, who will never thank you. Don’t be 


94 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 


so foolish girl. Life is too short. Where in the wide 
world are those thirty-five thousand dollars coming 
from?” 

“I told you not many moments ago where they 
were coming from,” said Mary ; “ and not only shall I get 
the thirty-four thousand and a fraction of a thousand I 
mentioned, but I shall get one hundred folding iron bed- 
steads at five dollars each, and as many mattress and 
other articles of furniture as we shall need for a first-class 
Retreat. It might be known as the Willing Workers’ 
Retreat, an ideal home for women. 

*‘Yes, Margaret,” continued Mary, “you must be- 
come interested in our cause, although you have wealth, 
you will be glad to remember the good you will be able 
to accomplish Come, Margaret, unite with the whole- 
souled philanthropic women of our time in their effort to 
erase the memories of the bad causes of the past. 
Memory lives beyond the grave. Memory feeds all soul 
life. Memory affects the consciousness, and often unfits 
the person harassed by unhappy memories for the per- 
forming of great or noble offices. We know that we 
must arrive at the port of the limits of life ourselves, and 
we are assured of helplessness for hours and days, and 
perhaps years, when we shall be dependent on the hos- 
pitality and helpful hands of another to give us shelter, 
give us nourishment and attend to our wants.” 

Margaret made no reply. Margaret, like thousands 
more, had not been trained for any great or noble deeds. 
Therefore, this sudden onslaught of wealth, prominence 
and precedence was not only a burden too weighty for 
her shoulders, but an impellent which invited thirst for 
the long-buried infamous history concerning the diamond 
anchor. She forgot all else. She could not be moved 
to an interest in woman’s wants. She had enlisted the 


Questionable Decisions. 


95 


services of a couple of young lawyers to aid her in her 
researches, without consulting her parents, and now the 
meek, demure Margaret Hasgrove has taken her first 
step toward a career which, at the close of her life, may 
bear many lessons to womankind. 

When Mary Bennett was obliged to abandon her 
plans, the disappointment so completely unnerved her 
that she was obliged to enter the hospital for treatment. 

Bertram Williams enlisted his sympathies in the 
cause so dear to the heart of Margaret. Thomas James 
declares to high heaven that, in so far as he is able, he 
will endeavor to bring Mary’s plan to a happy and prac- 
tical issue, and that a dwelling must be erected, however 
humble, and that from this dwelling electrifying darts 
must shoot forth for the uplifting and spreading of 
thoughts which will be worthy of woman, for the peace, 
good will, and true brotherhood of man. 

A week later we find Colonel Hasgrove and his 
good wife seated in their sleeping room, before a burn- 
ing oak knot in the grate, discussing, in regretful tones, 
the future which must necessarily be in store for their 
dear, darling Margaret. 

The cook is bending over the kitchen stove, prepar- 
ing a hot drink for the old people, who need something to 
quiet their nerves; hoping to invite a return of the peaceful 
sleep which fled from the Hasgrove household as soon 
as they became burdened by wealth ; while Sarah Jane 
listened to the song of the kettle, her hopes were kin- 
dling in favor of a home, and she declared to herself that 
a few rough boards, nailed together for a tent, would 
bring more soul-comfort than all the millions of her em- 
ployers. “ The poor and meek shall inherit the earth,” 
she murmured, adding, “Oh, most blessed be nothing!” 

Colonel Hasgrove and his wife retired, after taking 
their warm drink. 


96 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 

After Margaret had donned her slumber robe, in 
her own room, she picked-up her pen and wrote the fol- 
lowing few lines to Mary, to cheer, and offer the girl a 
speck of hope : 

Dearest Mary — In reference to the most praiseworthy 
work in which you are engaged, I have a suggestion to offer: 
Secure the sympathy of some writers to write a synopsis of all that 
transpired since your hopes began to kindle for a home. Sell the 
work, purchase title to the grounds along the banks of your beloved 
river. Or, if you do not sell the work, let it go on a royalty basis, 
and make it known to the women of America that you wish the 
money to project your plans. In this way you will become inde- 
pendent of almsgiving, and may God grant your theory may become 
an enlightener to all women. 

As ever yours, 

Margaret. 

Margaret retired immediately, and the next morn- 
ing caused her father any amount of uneasiness when 
she began to tell about the flight her soul had taken 
during the night. 

“Why, father,” exclaimed Margaret, “I must have 
been separated from my body. Only think of all the 
places I visited.” 

“Daughter, daughter, hear me! It is the burden of 
wealth ; no more, no less. Your brain is overtaxed.” 

“ Father, the brains of the men and women the 
world over are overtaxed, if they have wealth. But 
let me tell you where I have been in spirit.” 

“ Tell me all child, it is best that you should speak; I 
will never put an obstacle in your way, and I can see no 
other source from which an obstacle can arise. Do 
not fear to speak, do not fear to tell me all; never confide 
to strangers your thoughts, your plans, nor your faults, 
while I am alive.” 

“Oh, Father, everything I see is a mystery; my 
own existence is such a mystery; the vegetables, the 


Questionable Decisions. 


97 


corn, the flowers, the wheat, the greatest mystery of all.” 
Stroking her hair with her fingers, Margaret continues in 
a bewildered and exciting manner, “ I have often heard 
that wheat, like man, must die to live. Some time 
ago, I dropped a few kernels in a flower pot, to see them 
take root and die. I watched the process, and ana- 
lyzed its rottenness, and wondered how, that rotted grain 
could produce a life to nourish a new stock that would 
yield one hundred kernels. And I wondered if it is for 
this reason the undertakers sometimes have a sheaf of 
wheat in their show windows. Do they wish to ex- 
plain the mystery that, in order to live a new life, we 
we must die to the old one? But last night, oh, 
Father, my soul took such a flight that I learned, man 
in his discoveries, has unearthed but one of the millions 
of secrets which are hidden in the elements. I learned 
the moon supports a life today, as truly as the earth 
or other agencies of general force. The life in the moon 
is spending a degree that is not of the same magnitude 
of class which could be compared to that of man at this 
stage. Our earthquakes will reveal greater wonders to 
man in coming generations. Science will deal with 
wickedness in men till it has prescribed a new food by 
which the species of man shall be nourished; then a 
change will have completely developed, and this change 
will do away with this generation of thought and feeling 
of mankind. And I also learned that electricity will 
loose its hold, and it will be supplanted by another 
form of light and heat. The wheel will be laid aside 
for a more easy method by which man will be trans- 
ferred from one end of the globe to another. Aerial 
powers will do away with the present wonders of the 
deep, and man will, by the equilibrium of his own 
substance, add many new ideas, and in all his un- 


98 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


dertakings become more dignified, more thoughtful and 
more charitable/’ 

“ Yes, Margaret,” said Colonel Hasgrove, when his 
daughter finished telling her forecast, ” you may be right 
in some things. Something I learned last week gave me 
more insight to the mental ability of man, and more 
thought than I ever conceived before. Only think of it ! 
How men have compressed the air we breathe and formed 
liquid. By pressing it through a series of cylinders, and 
freezing it till it is reduced to more than three hundred 
degrees zero, it becomes transformed from a gaseous 
state to the liquid; and this liquid, again exposed to 
heat, expands with the intense force of over twelve 
thousand pounds to the square inch, and continues to 
expand till it returns to its first volume. In the flight 
which your spirit has taken you have studied the theories 
which scientists will prove to be facts. We may take it 
for granted, according to our knowledge of facts, when 
man has such control of the air which we so freely 
breathe, and can produce such force, which he holds at 
his own Command, that man who would study and put 
all his force and energy into one thought, such as St. 
Peter and St. Paul did, that with the power they 
received from the Divinity, they could do great deeds, 
especially when they proceeded from Him who so loved 
man and exercised his energies to such a degree that 
He sweat drops of blood, not water. This thought has 
come to me since I have been watching your anxiety 
and trouble, and your absolute refusal to help your 
brothers and sisters.” 

“ Father, last night I dreamed that I had an army 
of attendants, and that I was seated on a chair in mid-air, 
over the Statue of Liberty, in New York bay. The 
orphans down below were crying for bread, men and 


Questionable Decisions, 


99 


women were starving, the cold and the hungry were 
sending up to the Divine Master words of despair. Re- 
venge had taken possession of the strongest element in 
the world below. Occasionally a report ascended, the 
very sound of which nearly upset my chair. It was the 
shooting of cannon and the exploding of dynamite 
bombs. The disgrace and desolation which had over- 
powered the spirits of the multitude below were emitting 
rays of darkness, with so much power and force, that the 
heavens as far as I could see, were darkened by the in- 
fluence. Occasionally the darkness was penetrated by a 
streak of light silver, that did not appear to my vision 
larger around than a good-size steel needle, which seemed 
to extend from the earth into the skies. The streaks 
seemed without end. I learned those streaks penetrat- 
ing the darkness were the force of words of prayer, en- 
couragement and good thought. 

“ I ascended a ladder. I found myself in a large cloud- 
like circle. I could not see any floor under my feet, but 
I knew there must be one, or I would drop down and 
dash directly against the lamp held by the hand of Miss 
Liberty. My attendants were more refined than those I 
had in the degree below. I tried to nerve myself to the 
words of explanation which I wanted to make to them, 
about how I left the other circle without attending to 
the wants of my friends, and all about the troubles I 
wanted to straighten out down below, before making a 
new start ; although my heart ached and my conscience 
burned my soul aflame of love, I was powerless to say 
the words which would convey to my attendants the 
meaning. 

“ I dare not give expression to all the delights of the 
region in this upper sphere, as it is not best for any one 
to know before hand the delight that is in store for him. 

LofC. 


lOO 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 


I was in the realm of endless sunshine for the second 
that it took me to pass to the pedestal from which I was 
to survey the wonders of the material regions. My com- 
panions explained that the panorama before me was that 
which had been photographed by the firmament in the 
past, and that according as I entered the different degrees, 
I should see things more and more plainly, until, finally, 
I should have a sight of all that had ever taken place in 
the kingdom of the earth, and also of the whole firma- 
ment. I was delighted with this good news, but sud- 
denly my heart sank ; I thought, it will mar this delight 
when I see all the anguish I caused during my child- 
hood and womanhood.” 

“ Daughter, you have had a forewarning of the un- 
happiness in store for you, that is, if you carry out your 
present plan. You must encourage Mary in the project- 
ing of her work. She is sensible and reasonable in her 
demands. She is not excited. She holds in her theory 
material, which, if developed, will be more effective in 
the destruction of the saloon, the gambling house, and 
the prison, than the hatchet, if it were held in the hands 
of every woman in the whole nation. Society demands 
moderation in all things. The wisdom of experience 
seems to issue in every word falling from the girl’s lips.” 

“ Father, my heart is set on the solving of the prob- 
lem which envelops the diamond anchor,” said Margaret, 
as she left the dining room and entered her study. Seat- 
ing herself at her desk, she murmured, “ I must try and 
bring my spirit to a calm ; I must try and submit to my 
father’s advice.” She then rolled the case containing the 
gramophone into the conservatory, and seating herself 
’neath a towering palm, looking out upon the sunlit, 
snow-covered landscape, she listens to the following 
phonetic record of words once issued by her newly-found 


Questionable Decisions. loi 

cousin, whom she had dubbed the wonder-working revo- 
lutionizer when she first met him at the home of her 
cousin Amanda. 

“ Friends, that any man, whether king, statesman, 
minister or pope, can stem the tide leading to misery is 
a preposterous idea. Misery has been a companion of 
industry from time immemorial. Famine, pestilence and 
crime have seemed the instrumental chisel in the shaping 
of high and mighty thought and noble deed. The rapid 
strides men and women are now taking are leading 
humanity, as a whole, toward a center from which doth 
spring much evil. No warning cry, no exhortation, no 
law, contains enough force to check this destructive tor- 
nado of thoughtlessness, which has already dashed minds 
upon the rocks of anarchy, upon the elevation of assas- 
sination and to the exasperation of insanity, and the 
shamefulness of homicide and suicide.” 

When the record of words had been exhausted, 
Margaret, anxious to obtain light for her understanding, 
set the instrument for her cousin Amanda’s favorite 
piece, by a Mexican reformer, and she listened with 
attention to the following : 

“ The Supreme Almighty Omnipotent Omnipresent 
God speaks to man personally. 

“ Dare you, conceited man,” shouted the instrument, 
dare you in this enlightened age make use of the 
powers that you are allowed to enjoy and control, and 
see your fellow-man suffer with hunger and cold. You 
will tell me you know of none. The Savior told you, 
seek and you shall find, ask and it will be given to you. 
Man, with all his learning, with all his power and might, 
has not yet learned the one-millionth part of the mean- 
ing of this one parable. Seek ye the cause of the ethereal 
and aerial disturbances : seek ye the hidden things of the 


102 


While Hopes Were Kindling. 


deep of the sea ; seek the true meaning of real charity j 
seek ye the cause that inspires hatred among men, and 
the cause of wars, and having learned the cause, seek to 
remedy the evil. 

It is easy for man to bring peace and good-will 
among all men; it is as easy for him to bring God’s 
kingdom upon the earth as it was for Edison to send me 
to tell this to you ; if men only knew, God through the 
agencies of those millions of atoms, which give weight 
to the air that presses upon your bodies, each of you 
bearing a weight of over twenty thousand pounds, sends 
to you the message of the great mystery of life. Think, 
oh, man, think, I beg of you, think well, draw from the 
supernatural fountain all that is yours, if you will only 
ask for it. Consider the force of a word. The force of 
one word extends in every direction in the natural 
kingdom, with a quickness that is as far beyond scientific 
analysis to you today as was the use of electricity to you 
a hundred years ago. The immensity of your neighbor 
planet, the sun, is more than a million times greater than 
the earth, and the space between you and the sun is 
millions and millions of miles. The air that is within 
you produces an equilibrium, or the air that presses up- 
on you would crush you ; you could not exist ; this is a 
truth, you know it is, but you cannot see it. Your body 
is a miracle in its construction. O, proud, conceited 
man, you are of little moment compared to the vastness 
of creation. But when you learn the necessary part you 
were created to take in the immensity of eternity, peace 
and happiness will take possession of your whole being. 
Invite this new life to yourselves by your word ; try the 
experiment ; begin today ; form an association for reform 
in this direction. Say only such words as speak for 
good. 


Questionable Decisions. 


103 


“ Ingersoll is not dead to the world while his scandal 
lives; Plato is not dead to the world while his error 
lives; Mother Shipton is not dead to the world while 
her word lives. All the effects of her word are great. 
I tell you, oh, man, that this illustrates the power of the 
word. The word is as light — you cannot frame it. 
Learn, you, the power of the word. The word possesses 
power. Try it. Talk to a tree; it will not hear, but 
talk to man capable of understanding, keep on for one 
month, argument after argument; and he will have begun 
to show signs of conversion. 

“ The world, the sphere known to and spoken of in 
the strange language attributed to Mother Shipton, 
will come to an end. The human and all other families 
on the face of the earth will dissolve into an invisible 
life; that is, life that to your natural sight is now hidden, 
but to those who have passed away and have already 
been dissolved, it is as clear as an open book is to you. 
The Church of Christ will remain until the end of time, 
as surely as the word of Christ is true; as surely as 
these words are falling upon your ears now, very like 
human, but which are not human. 

“ Nations will be restored to their power when they 
listen to words of reason, of charity, and of conscience. 
Above all things, practice good words ; encourage one 
another in the use of good words. Form good-word 
associations; gather your friends about you, and study 
the effect of good words. Begin a study of this kind 
with a fitness that will delight men and women of this 
enlightened age. Do not allow arguments or discussion. 
Lift up the voice God has given you. Praise all the 
work your soul is capable of conceiving. Praise God 
in His works. Ask the sea for her secrets ; ask her why 
she kept the fishes to herself. Ask the air why she 


104 While Hopes Were Kindling, 

acts as a pump for the sun, to draw water from the sea 
and spill it upon the earth; ask the air why, in the dis- 
tribution of the waters, she is so generous to some places, 
and leaves in other places people and plants to suffer and 
di e. 

Ask your own souls why you have ever erred in 
the distribution of your energy, and why you did not 
concentrate it to the seeking of the talent which is yours; 
and having learned to use that gift which was given for 
your honor and glory, why you have been slothful and 
indifferent in fitting yourself for the life that is required of 
you, that will not die when you are dissolved in spirit, 
but like Peter, Paul, John and James, and every man who 
uttered a word, sincerely, according to his soul’s under- 
standing, your word will not die. My advice to you is, 
to begin today; begin with the new year, form associa- 
tions for the protection of men. The best way to begin 
is to train the child that becomes the mother. The 
mother is the educator, the father is the man. God 
taught this to your first parents when he took from 
Adam, during one of his mysterious sleeps, a rib, and 
developed from that part of Adam’s body another crea- 
ture ; you are told this woman is in part of man ; another 
part consists of the invisible or supernatural, that must 
aid nature in ennobling and perfecting that which belongs 
to him. Eve was in part of man, bone of his bone. 
Some men need this part that was given them in the 
first act of creation ; she is his natural right, his equal in 
some things. She must co-operate with man in the 
laws of good. They must feed, clothe and instruct, and 
they must learn from God the lessons and impart to their 
son his duties toward his fellow-men, when he is launched 
out on the sea of life ; and they must study the require- 
ments, by watching him in his work, and recognize God 


Questionable Decisions, 105 

in all His power and glory in the unceasing movements of 
all things ; therefore, oh, you woman, who have listened 
to a lifeless voice sounding in the air, and penetrating the 
air that is wafted this instant from this very rostrum out- 
ward millions and millions of miles, my words have been 
wafted on and on, and have penetrated the heavens, and 
as you know, we could not have given voice to this senti- 
ment if the Eternal Law-giver did not permit us. Though 
vague and beyond your analysis my instrumental 
soundings may be, they have gone forth, and as sure as 
they went forth, God will be better known and better 
served by all those who are willing to begin to seek the 
God-given treasures that are to be unveiled in man. 
Woman, dare not to leave my presence without saying to 
your Creator that you will make every effort, that you 
will give your entire energies to bring man nearer the 
ideal God wishes him to be." 

At the conclusion of the record Margaret closed 
her eyes and drawing her chair nearer the register, she 
said to herself : 

“ I do wish Mary all success in building up a home 
for women, where they might go and stay for such a 
price as would cover their expense, where the highest 
moral influence must surround them every hour. If I 
were Mary, I would assent to the advice of Miss N. C. H., 

medical doctor of B , and cause Cousin Amanda’s 

thought to be published and spread promiscuously 
among all women of the land, regardless of class or 
creed. Too many cannot become interested, too many 
cannot engage in a good work; but too many may be 
too weak to take an interest in the work. Like myself, 
too many may have diamond problems to solve. Too 
many wonder-working revolutionizers forget that great 
men and great women began life in squatters’ shanties 


io6 While Hopes Were Kindlmg. 

and stable lofts for homes ; and if those wonder-working, 
blatant revolutionizers would cease to offer theories, and 
show earnestness, and go to work and contribute one or 
two dollars each toward a cause of the kind, then I would 
have some reason to believe their tongues and pens were 
governed by heart throbs, and not by cunning endeavor to 
hold visual attention and patronizing flattery, while they 
are merely posing at the crank which may, or may not, 
throw the machinery forward. I will not help the cause 
until I believe more strongly than I do now in its prac- 
ticability; but some woman ought to champion Mary 
Bennett’s cause. I am but a savage in the second degree, 
anyway. My grandmother was but an Indian girl. I 
cannot promote such a cause, but some woman should 
have Amanda’s thought and work published, and from 
the proceeds of the volume erect a home to be known 
the world over as the home erected by her recompense. 
It might be called the Willing Workers’ Recompense, and 
open its doors to well wishers. Let those who buy the 
book become honorary members of the family of women 
who should have first right to the use of a room therein 
when they become helpless and homeless or in need of 
kind, helpful hands.” 

Margaret continues her day dream, while at the hos- 
pital poor Mary is tossing on a feverish pillow. When 
the nurse read to her the few lines written by Margaret, 
she said : 

I have entered a practical contact with the needs 
of mankind, having accepted an invitation to deal with 
the moral and active difficulties of woman’s world. I feel 
it my duty to speak to my fellow-woman, to call her at- 
tention to the simple facts which fill the world with 
gloom and have added blots to our beautiful landscape 
by penal and charitable institutions and helmeted, plumed 


Questionable Decisions. 107 

knights of the club who travel in grand procession. 
Through woman’s universal consent, through her self- 
constituted deficit; through cold expressions permeating 
her fair face, these things have come. A century has 
gasped, and another has muttered that business and strife, 
fashionable gatherings and less home sentiment have 
given rise to a frigid sentiment which, in turn, is bad. I 
have no thirst for worldly honors in my plans. I wish 
the lowest place, beneath every one. I hope the holy 
will of God may be fulfilled in me, and that woman 
may enter within the borders of perfect rest.” 

The nurse and attending physicians at the hospital 
were very kind to Mary, whose fever increased very 
rapidly, and it was not many days before death, that 
Impartial Agent, claimed his own. When her dead 
body was removed from the hospital, the nurse and sev- 
eral friends were discussing the problems suggested by 
her ravings, when a young woman of the reform move- 
ment and a few lady and gentlemen friends entered the 
public parlors. It so happened that all present had met on 
former occasions, so after words of sympathy and the sea- 
son’s greeting were exchanged, they discussed the noble 
project which invited Miss Bennett to her early grave. 

Two of the young women happened to be projecting 
a like cause, and their minds seemed to run in nearly the 
same thought-stream as that of Miss Bennett ; so they 
declared that they would find pleasure in promoting the 
final and happy issue necessary for the full development 
of the plan for the Home for Aged and Helpless and a 
thought exchange. 

One of the young men said, by way of encourage- 
ment, “ Why, the women of the whole world would unite 
in the developing of thought-power if you could get 
some gifted theologian to compile a new catechism — a 


io8 While Hopes Were Kindling, 

new woman’s — new humanizing creed. Compile for her 
a short set of rules and regulations for her heart culture, 
and her soul’s adornment. -Let these include the effects 
of inherited virtues and vices on the heart which throbs 
in response to each mental call. Give in short, decisive, 
plain language, hints necessary for every woman to know 
and practice, and cause these catechisms to be distrib- 
uted, to be read, and their contents to be discussed in 
the homes of the poorest and in the club rooms of the 
wisest and most highly blest.” 

“ I believe with you ” added another, “ I believe all 
women want today is to have facts proved, and great 
theories offered. To my mind, one of the most necessary 
bits of advice we all stand in need of is to have someone 
explain to us ‘how we might train the eye to lead 
in a grand movement for the eliminating of the ungodly 
habit of thought handed down to us.’ How are we to 
establish a movement that would lead us, as a whole, in 
training the eye so that all our visual measurements of one 
another would be correct? We should all be above the 
miserable habit of sinking in the presence of an applicant 
until we wonder at ourselves and ask, how comes it that 
we no longer view the image and likeness of God in the 
expression of our fellow-man. I hope for the time when 
we may enjoy a movement for men and women, working 
in unison, and that all their visual measurements will be 
accurate. When no woman would allow her mind to 
so sink, that she would stand at the doorway and 
measure the poor applicant by her evil eye, and heart, 
and brain, tangled in an uncultured and unfeeling string 
of unworthy evidence against her fellow-woman. I hope 
to find all women with well-developed heart culture — not 
art culture, because art culture is cold, it is misleading. 
When heart culture is developed, brain culture will force 


Questionable Decisions. 1 09 

woman’s visual powers into another system of measuring 
all people and all things. Woman will not be hampered 
then by the darkness found in past ages.” 

“You have taken woman to a great altitude,” said 
Miss Fenton. “ I am afraid we will never see your 
prophecies fulfilled.” 

“Yes, his forecastings are correct,” argued Mr. Law; 
“ and men and women will unite in thought, and hand 
down to coming generations a habit of sympathy, which 
will make the world a perfect paradise. Why, for an ex- 
ample,” he continued, “ notice the thousands and thou- 
sands of people in New York City who filled the audi- 
torium in Daly’s theatre week after week, in order to 
spend an hour or two there to measure an attraction up- 
on the stage called ‘ Shore Acres.’ Shore Acres repre- 
sented an aged man with a great heart, a man who wa s 
a messenger of peace, a model of patience, a man to 
whom the innocent child clung for protection, a man 
who could not stretch his visual measurements so far as 
to find evil intentions in the attentions of a student doctor 
who addressed his neice, although the girl’s father con- 
demed her in words too harsh for sound. Yes, my 
friends, the mind which fashions our visual measure- 
ments is tied to the heart by strings of many colors. 
Great men and great women see no good coming from 
caloused hearts, nor from bad-minded people, whether 
rich or poor, except in so far as that their presence in the 
world reflects such harrowing conditions as that occa- 
sionally they produce the discontent which enables an 
agitated sister or brother to rise up against their un- 
godly practices. We need great hearts on every stage 
and in every pulpit.” 

“Well, Mr. Law, we have a point at issue, and it 
cannot be handled by forecasting the future. It is a work 
of today, for today, and for the women of today.” 


no While Hopes Were Kindling, 

What is it?” 

“ We have concluded to go through the country 
and invite the president of every club and association be- 
tween New York and San Francisco to establish a new 
habit of thought in behalf of men and women who earn 
their daily bread.” 

“ Very well ; what then ? ” 

“We have concluded,” continued the speaker, “that it 
is a disgrace to humanity to be assured that there are 
from forty to sixty poor men fed coffee and bread in the 
vestibule outside the front door every day at each of 
three convents located within an angle separating the 
houses by the distance of but one mile in the City 

of B . We are forced to presume a bowl of 

coffee and two large slices of bread keeps death from 
overtaking the applicant and no more. The convents 
are taxed beyond their ability to furnish these peo- 
ple, and yet we hear no complaint. But our point is, 
that we should endeavor to get men of wealth to build 
thousands of little homes, on wheels, and supply the 
occupants with farm implements and other utensils, and 
invite them out to our vast unoccupied, untilled lands 
and give them work. Give them incubators and let 
them raise chickens for food; let them learn how to do 
honest labor. Give them garden seed, and seed wheat, 
and corn, and oats, and a horse, a cow, and a few things 
which could be bought for the price of one of your hand- 
some sets of diamond shirt studs and your finger ring.” 

“Then what?” inquired Mr. Law. 

“ When the poor are scattered to the mountain side, 
or to vast prairies, and enjoy the healthful, happy condi- 
tion wealth has made for them, we wish you to urge the 
remaining members of society to turn their thoughts 
again toward woman and city homes. We wish the 


Questionable Decisions. 


1 1 1 


women to proclaim a ‘ muslin day/ and on that day let 
the women throughout the city send out, from either 
their home or the clubs, invitations to friends to attend a 
lecture or talk, and that each guest must bring as her 
benevolent offering five yards of muslin, for the linen- 
room supply of Women’s Benevolent Home ; then have 
a muslin hop, where the young ladies must wear dominos 
draped from sheeting, and leave the domino to the home 
after the hop is over as her benevolent donation to the 
benevolent home. Then next comes ‘ blanket day/ all 
persons receiving an invitation to the lecture, or the hop, 
or party, must be clad in a pair of blankets. The Ara- 
bain uniqueness of the draped blanket will cause merri- 
ment, and when it is left by the wearer as a benevolent 
offering to the home, it will serve the guest a double 
purpose. Yes, we are anxious to go ahead with a party 
and to invite our friends out on towel day, and crash 
day, and curtain day, and carpet day, tablecloth day, 
napkin day, cheesecloth day, and cotton day, and we 
hope each day will contribute to the pleasure of all 
women, and also contribute to the furnishing of an ideal 
rest for the willing workers of our times.” 

“ You are very good schemers,” said Mr. Law, 
good humoredly. “You could easily fill the three 
hundred and sixty-five days with some doings.” 

“We certainly could. We would have a pound 
party day, a grocers’ day, a day for canned goods. 
One thing you may rest assured of, is that our prices 
shall be within the reach of all respectable working 
women for rental of rooms and privileges of home at our 
institution, if our work is a success.” 

“ And still you are not willing to call your institu- 
tion a house of charity ? ” 

“ No, sir, we are not; we do not agree with a charity 
as some people today understand its significance. The 


I 12 


While Hopes Were Kindling, 

word charity, as some use it today, carries with it that 
which tends to unbuild character and lessen independence. 
It should be the duty of all to see to it that we improve 
the people who need charity and beg from door to door. 
We should take pleasure in sustaining free kitchens, free 
dining halls, free baths, and free disinfectants for persons 
whom embarrassment had lowered to the degree of dis- 
pair. No man nor woman will leave their fireside and 
come for alms, if their minds are well balanced, unless 
they are in need; therefore, at our new home we should 
find it a pleasure to allow men and women to enter and 
remove all their own old garments, and, after a bath, put 
on a new supply, which should be the uniform of that 
ward ; and instead of hiring people to wait on them — nor 
granting that women who have offered their lives in sac- 
rifice should be burdened by them — we should sell 
them sufficient food for their meals and Jet them 
prepare it themselves. This could be managed system- 
atically by visiting delegates and their superintendents, 
and the buildings could be sustained by pulpit and stage 
attractions, and the material for clothing and furnishings 
secured as I said before ; and this good-word, good-will 
movement should supplant ^ charity ’ as it is today, and 
do away with all this commotion against ourselves.” 

“Well, girls, you may be right,” said Mr. Law, 
gravely. “ Whenever the great theatrical managers place 
upon the American stage a play representing life as it is 
or was, they do not feel subject to the aim’s giver when 
they tax the people who enjoy the performance [for two 
hours] the sum of five, ten or fifty dollars for a box, or a 
dollar or two for admission fee. And with this money 
to use, they go far and near. As I understand you, you 
wish to give balls and parties, lectures and musicales, and 
charge persons attending, not cash, but a certain number 


Questionable Decisions. 1 1 3 

of yards of cloth or draperies, which shall be the costume 
worn by all, in order to be allowed the simple privilege 
of being a guest at the entertainment. You are going to 
have lectures by lawyers, doctors, priests and ministers 
of all denominations, college professors, artists, and all 
classes of cultured men and women for the special feature 
of your entertainment.” 

“ Yes, such is our plan.” 

“ Then, you are going to build the house where ? ” 
he asked. 

“ If we can find a leader in the movement, we may 
rent a house most anywhere. We will willingly do most 
anything in order to establish the movement, and we are 
not selfish about our ideas. If women who believe as we 
do start a wonder-working band of willing workers in 
every city in the union, it will make us happy. We are 
not seeking to be the leaders in the movement. It is 
ours to simply ‘ stir,’ though we believe that if thought 
is once stirred, activity will follow.” 

“You are about right,” replied Mr. Law, “and I 
wish you all success in your plan. I shall spare no 
pains to arrange my blanket coat to a perfect fit when I 
have the honor of being a guest at your blanket ball.” 

“ We shall call on you to attend not only the blanket 
ball, but you must come on kitchen utensils day, on 
knife and fork day, on plate day, on cup and saucer day, 
on picture day, on bureau-cover day, on stand-cover day, 
on crockery day, on flour day, on meal day; yes, you 
must come, Mr. Law, because we shall have a day set 
apart for a lecture for each article, and the tax for atten- 
dance will be simply the bringing of one piece of ware as 
a contribution to the department.” 

“ But, who will pay the lecturer his fee? ” 

“ One gentleman has offered a hall without charge 
for one year and as many evenings as we wish the use of 


1 1 4 While Hopes Were Kindling. 

it for lectures; another has offered his time and speech 
for one dozen lectures, and we have no doubt but thou- 
sands of our benevolent lawyers, doctors and clergymen 
will do as much as either of these in order to establish a 
thorough-going, well-equipped thought exchange for 
women.” 

When Mr. Law left the room the girls concluded 
that they would work faithfully for the spreading of 
thought in favor of establishing the home, and also for 
the carrying out of a plan in the architectural design for 
the arrangement of two kitchens and two dining rooms. 
One kitchen and dining room for the use of women whose 
taste was limited, where fifteen or twenty small gas stoves 
would be arranged for individual cooking, giving woman 
a chance to suit her taste in quality and quantity of food. 
And the other kitchen for the use of those who enjoyed 
wholesome appetites and paid for regular attendance. 
This arrangement would make it an ideal home for 
women of whatever taste and means. The subject 
was discussed until threadbare, and the little meeting 
closed without finding one willing to take upon herself 
the difficult task of leadership. 


CHAPTER VIIL 


Hearts Adrift. 

While Colonel Hasgrove, his wife and daughter 
were at the home of Mary Bennett waiting for the funeral 
services to begin, a messenger entered with a large 
wreath of white roses wrapped in a newspaper, which he 
removed, and cast away, with such haste that those stand- 
ing near decided that the boy was so confused it was 
unnecessary to add that he should be excused. Mar- 
garet’s eyes followed the wet and crumpled newspaper 
and she contemplated the true sense of the thought of the 
writer as she slowly read : 

“ If I should die tonight 
My friends would look upon my quiet face 
Before they laid it in its resting place. 

And deem that death had left it almost fair ; 

And laying snow-white flowers against my hair. 
Would smooth it down with tearful tenderness. 

And fold my hands with lingering caress — 

Poor hands, so empty and so cold tonight. 

‘ Tf I should die tonight, 

My friends would call to mind with loving thought 
Some kindly deed the icy hand had wrought ; 

Some gentle word the frozen lips had said ; 

Errands on which the willing feet had sped ; 

The memory of my selfishness and pride. 

My hasty words would all be put aside. 

And so I should be loved and mourned tonight. 

“ If I should die tonight. 

Even hearts estranged would turn once more to me, 
Recalling other days remorsefully ; 

The eyes that chill me with averted glance 


”5 


While Hopes Were Kindlifig. 


116 


Would look upon me as of yore, perchance, 

And soften in the old familiar way ; 

For who could war with dumb, unconscious clay ? 

So I might rest, forgiven of all, tonight. 

“ Oh, friend,, I pray tonight, 

Keep not your kisses for my cold dead brow ! 

The way is lonely ; let me feel them now. 

Think gently of me ; I am travel-worn ; 

My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn. 
Forgive, O hearts estranged, forgive I plead ! 

When dreamless rest is mine, I shall not need 
The tenderness for which I long tonight.” 

When the services were over Margaret begged her 
parents to hasten homeward. When she entered her 
own room, she knelt down at her bedside and asked for- 
giveness of the Heavenly Father for all the trials and 
crosses she had placed in poor Mary’s way, and then and 
there she resolved that the very next Saturday she would 
sail for Sunny Italy, and before returning to our own 
dear land of the free she would become an accomplished 
woman of the world, and, meanwhile, solve the problem 
surrounding the diamond anchor. Fully determined to 
place the vast body of water between herself and the 
trials and sorrows surrounding woman, and the strife and 
poverty to be found here and there and everywhere in 
our own sweet land of liberty, Margaret retired, while 
questioning the hints and while quoting the following : 

‘ ‘ Why is the heart of highest heaven 
Fretted as with fire? 

Why are the planets ceaselessly 
Whirling with desire ? 

The heart of man, why pulses it 
So restlessly and fast? ” 

The next morning Margaret explained her decision 
to her parents, who declared they would accompany her 
in her foreign travels. Colonel Hasgrove went at once 


Hearts Adrift, 


117 

and gave orders to four of his workmen and their families 
to prepare to live in his spacious mansion, and he imme- 
diately telegraphed to a contractor and builder to fit it 
up as an apartment house. Mother Hasgrove reserved 
the attic and storeroom for their own use, to stow away 
valuable keepsakes and antique furniture ; and being 
superstitious about giving away wearing apparel, she 
rendered hundreds of garments to the mercy of the flames 
in a bon-fire, which marked their last night on the estate. 

On Saturday afternoon Colonel Hasgrove, his wife 
and daughter and two hired women, stepped aboard a 
steamer, which left the port an hour later, and as they 
were sailing out of New York bay, while looking back- 
ward toward the dignified statue of Miss Liberty, with 
her emblazoned torch. Colonel Hasgrove repeated in an 
undertone the old familiar song, “ Home, Sweet, Home,” 
half regretful for leaving his own dear home ; and he 
sighed deeply and sank into a steamer chair, as if ex- 
hausted, when he said: 

“ An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain ; 

Oh, give me my lonely thatched cottage again ; 

The birds singing gayly, that come at my call ; 

Give me them, and that peace of mind, dearer than all. 
Home, home, sweet, sweet home.” 

And at the same instant, Margaret, with her com- 
panions, looked out upon the waters, and amazed by the 
wonderful towering heights of the lofty buildings, the 
cannon and other artillery placed along the bay’s ridge, 
she exclaimed: 

” Land of greatness ! Home of glory ! 

Thou art the birth place of the free. 
***** 

Noble deeds of old inspiring 
Ev’ry heart with lofty aim. 

Now our emulation firing. 

Lead us on to greater fame.” 






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